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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24786136">Earth is Gone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaloDogfish/pseuds/MaloDogfish'>MaloDogfish</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hermitcraft RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Anxiety, Gen, No particular season, Video Game Mechanics, Worldbuilding, cosmic horror</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:47:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>28,733</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24786136</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaloDogfish/pseuds/MaloDogfish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Minecraft is a terrifying program that turns real worlds, like Earth, into a game. Watch as the human hermits try not to despair. Watch as Grian remembers something about the Void, even though he shouldn't be able to. Watch as Etho tries to be friends with the humans so hard, he's just a big fan guys! He's really nice! He loves Canada!<br/>And watch as the complete and utter reformation of the known universe is helped along by barely willing participants.</p><p>The Void-folk need more space, after all.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>None</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>79</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>284</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. We don't remember our names</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Earth was gone.</p><p>Everyone was gone.</p><p>Except for… how many people?</p><p>…</p><p>There was him. His name was gone, but he knew, at least, he counted among the last humans.</p><p>There was a tall man with an old-fashioned mustache.</p><p>There was a scruffy, plain-looking man.</p><p>There was an old man.</p><p>There was a woman in pink.</p><p>There was a woman in stripes.</p><p>There was a bearded man who looked like a scientist.</p><p>There was a scarred man.</p><p>There was a man who looked like a butcher.</p><p>There was a kind-looking bearded man.</p><p>And that was all of them.</p><p>...</p><p>He spoke up.</p><p>“Do… do any of you have names?” when the silence broke, it seemed to startle quite a few of them.</p><p>The man closest to him, with the mustache, glanced around nervously, shifting in his spot on the floor in the featureless white room they all sat in after they appeared there.</p><p>“…No. I don’t… remember my name.” he said.</p><p>“I don’t either.”</p><p>A pause.</p><p>“Well,” drawled the scruffy man in a southern accent, “we ought to have names. Things could get confusing, otherwise.”</p><p>“Maybe we should ask whoever, or whatever, took our names from us.” said the woman in stripes, threat buried shallowly in her words.</p><p>“We don’t really know what happened, right? I’d reserve judgment, at least.” said the kind-looking bearded man.</p><p>The butcher nodded along. His voice was higher than expected. “Innocent until proven guilty.” he paused. “So… we were either saved from our doomed planet, or it was… destroyed… and they, what, chose us randomly to not destroy?”</p><p>The mustached man shrugged. “Basically? That’s what I’ve surmised.”</p><p>“Who are ‘they’ though?” wondered the woman in pink.</p><p>“Aliens.” chorused a few of them.</p><p>“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said, rolling her eyes.</p><p>Just then, a knock sounded at what they’d assumed was one of the walls. The man who looked like a scientist and the scarred man hopped to their feet and backpedaled from the source of the noise. Everyone stood and stared at the wall.</p><p>“Uh…Come in?” said the scarred man.</p><p>At that, the wall disappeared with popping noises, about a meter square each time. Behind the wall was what looked like a man, though he wore a mask over half his face and had unnaturally grey-white hair held away from his eyes (one of which appeared scarred and possibly non-functional, as it was a striking red) by a headband with a metal plate with what looked like a maple leaf on the forehead. The man (?) smiled.</p><p>“Hi, humans!” he said, cheerfully waving. “Man, I am so glad X let us take some of you with us! I’m honestly a huge fan of your, ahem, former planet. But listen, before you get mad about us, ya know, messing with everything… We’ll make improvements. You gotta know, we do this all the time. We’re pros at this kinda thing, and you will be too, with time.”</p><p>Everyone stared, not knowing what to say. Until the woman in stripes made to punch the man. Her fist went right through him while he chuckled nervously.</p><p>“Yeah…” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I get it. It’ll take some getting used to. Oh! We did erase your memories. That’s procedure, it helps with, uh, the big change. So… you all get to pick new names! Fun, right? You could go by anything!”</p><p>The woman in stripes, fuming, shouted, “False! Not fun! Terrible, even! Why can’t I punch you?”</p><p>“False, huh? That’s an interesting one…” The alien man shakily wrote it down on a hologram that materialized on his wrist.</p><p>The newly dubbed False said nothing and went to sit in a corner in a very angry fashion.</p><p>“Who’s next?” He said, scanning over the small crowd of humans.</p><p>They all stayed silent.</p><p>“…Maaaybe I’ll come back when you’ve had time to think?” The alien man said, apparently sensing the obvious hostility.</p><p>A white cube popped into existence in the man’s hand, and in seconds, each section of the wall that had disappeared was put back into place one by one.</p><p>After a moment, most everyone relaxed again and sat back down.</p><p>“Well. Looks like they’re proven guilty.” the old man said.</p><p>“Guess so. But… look on the bright side. We’re still here. We can… we have to make the best of what we got.” said the scarred man.</p><p>“Scar is right. We’re still alive, so… let’s live.” said the scientist.</p><p>“Scar?” questioned the scarred man.</p><p>“Dude, you have so many scars on your face,” he replied.</p><p>“Oh. Scar it is then.” Scar said.</p><p>“In that case, I’m going to go by Joe. Easy to remember,” said Joe.</p><p>“I’ll be Stress. Because I am stressed.” Stress said decisively.</p><p>“I’ll be… I don’t want to be, like, Brian, so… Grian.” he said, chiming in along with everyone else.</p><p>“I’m not so sure I want something like Joe, but I also don’t want some weird mumbo jumbo like-”</p><p>“That’s perfect!” interrupted Grian. “You can be Mumbo!”</p><p>“Ah, well. I mean… yeah? I guess that’s fine??” Grian was pretty sure Mumbo was fine with it.</p><p>With that, however, everyone else wasn’t so ready to suggest a name for themselves.</p><p>“That alien didn’t say we had to decide right away, did he?” asked the kind bearded man.</p><p>“I don’t think so.” said the butcher.</p><p>“I wonder if there are back-ups of our memories or something. If there are, we could just, you know, take them back. Keep our real names.” said the scientist.</p><p>“As nice as that would be, I doubt it. Why would they want to keep our memories?” said the old man.</p><p>“I don’t know… as bargaining chips, if we don’t comply?” the scientist replied.</p><p>“I guess it’s possible. At this point, who knows what they can do?” said the old man.</p><p>They all fell silent.</p><p>Just then, a voice came to life somewhere within the room.</p><p>“Hello all, and welcome to your new lives as part of our terraforming artistry crew,” the voice paused as if reading the next sentence in what he was going to say, “The Hermits. Known as Hermitcraft among the governing bodies of sector 18 of the… Milky Way? as called by the former denizens of Earth. You all are about to participate in the, yes, terraforming of the former Earth by way of the ‘Minecraft’ planetary reformation system first invented by an unknown entity, colloquially attributed to space. The Hermits are a multi-species group primarily of artists and engineers from all over the galaxy. You are our newest members chosen at random from the cache of humans. Those besides yourselves have since been recalibrated to exist as pseudo-entities within the Minecraft system. In a few moments, you and the rest of the crew will be transported to a predetermined location on the surface of the former Earth. From there, we begin our creative, collaborative, and above all, fantastic work. This has been your administrator, Xisuma. Enjoy!”</p><p>In a bright flash of light, one by one, the humans disappeared from the room. Each of them began to panic at the sudden displacement. Soon, it was only Grian. And then Grian was lying on some sand, listening to the chatter and the shouting of people he knew and didn’t know.</p><p>It had begun.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. No time to think</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Etho was so excited.</p><p>Well, he was a little sad that they were going to be terraforming Earth, his favorite planet, but X had finally agreed to more crew members than usual. Usually, they’d only pick out one sentient person from any planet they’d terraform. This time, though, with a lot of pestering from Etho, a whole group would be joining them!</p><p>Etho loved the transmissions from Earth they’d come across. Most of them came from a country called Canada, though he figured from context that Canada wasn’t the most powerful country. He guessed it was something to do with there being more similar frequencies or something like that. Either way, over time he’d picked up some things from Canada and the sorts of things that were shared widely throughout. Or so he presumed. There was an entertainment-data-set made of drawn pictures and sound files (mostly broken) that formed a story called ‘Naruto’. Etho really liked the design of one of the characters. He made his own tweaks, like the maple leaf for Canada on the headband, but overall, his formerly very ethereal appearance was based on that. Though his species was made up of shapeshifters, he’d been known to never really change at all.</p><p>His species was gone, and so were his memories, so Etho didn’t have any metric sooner than just nine or so Earth years ago, but… what he’d found in Earth transmissions, he’d latched onto fiercely. He never wanted to change.</p><p>Etho really hadn’t wanted to terraform Earth. Terraforming meant that the former world would be saved to a database where it would manifest as a virtual world. It was inaccessible to terraforming crews until they retired. The remaining land would be shattered and reformed by the Minecraft system and made suitable for the crew to build on with minimal effort. Though there were other systems like Minecraft, it was the favorite and most used due to its game-like properties. Instead of plain aesthetics and artistry over a boring map with building presets plopped on, they could live on the world with in-built danger, build whatever they wanted, and, one of Etho’s favorite parts, tinker with the deceptively simple Redstone. Sure, their main goal with terraforming was beautification for the purposes of the Void-folk to live there in the future, but Etho and some other crew members filled a role with their machines too. They helped with the initial and ‘endgame’ survival of the Void-folk. Automatic farming of useful resources.</p><p>Earth’s resources.</p><p>Etho was sad that he’d never see any of Earth in detail until he retired (which meant he had about 4700 Earth years remaining on his mandatory employment, about two-thirds of his remaining life-expectancy). But with these humans, it’d be like nothing ever changed. They’d help them navigate the new Earth-based mechanics, and build Earth-like structures from the memory fragments that every Hermit was left with… It would be fantastic.</p><p>He was positively giddy with anticipation as he walked down the hall to the bridge of the ship. He wanted to thank X in person.</p><p>The door slid open, and there was X, staring in deep thought at a holographic representation of Earth. There was a lot more ocean than Etho had expected. When the door closed with a quiet hiss, X turned around to see him.</p><p>“Oh, Etho.” He sounded somber. “The world encoding is done. I’m just running the program for the new crew members.” he turned back, pointing at the trickling lines of code in a box off to the side.</p><p>“How many are we getting exactly?” asked Etho.</p><p>“I’m making it an even ten.”</p><p>“Ten! Wow, that’s a huge step up from just one. This is gonna be great!”</p><p>“Now, Etho, don’t get too excited. It might be that not all of them will cooperate with us.”</p><p>“…You mean… we might not keep all of them?”</p><p>“We’ll see.”</p><p>“…Well, I guess it’ll be cool either way, right?” Etho shrugged to himself, trying to keep from sounding horrified. “Anyway. I wanted to thank you. For all the new crew members.”</p><p>“Sure, sure. I want you to keep them in line for this one.” X looked pointedly back at him. “Since you’re the one who wanted them all so badly.”</p><p>“Oh! Okay. Yeah. I can do that.” Etho smiled. At least he’d have a lot of influence with the humans. He might even be able to keep them all from causing too much trouble for X.</p><p>“I know you’ll do a good job. But… I, well, I suspect you’ll be needing a grace period. Aggression won’t be cataloged until, say, an Earth week has passed.”</p><p>“…Okay. I hope I won’t need it.” Etho saluted and turned to leave.</p><p>“Good luck Etho. They’ll be here in a few minutes in the holding bay. You’ll have some time to say hello and explain, and then we’ll be getting started.”</p><p>“Yes sir.” the door slid open and Etho left.</p><p>When the door closed, he had a panic attack. How was he going to protect ten people from what he could only assume was destruction? As he shakily walked back down the hall toward the holding bay in preparation for the new crew members, he ran into Doc.</p><p>He noticed immediately that something was up with Etho.</p><p>“Hey, you doing alright?” He asked.</p><p>Doc, the tallest crew member and the most intimidating with his copious cyborg parts, was at heart a softie, especially for Etho. He’d understand.</p><p>But Etho found himself shaking his head, and smiling, trying to quell Doc’s concern. “Everything’s fine! I’m just… a little nervous about the new crew members.” he lied.</p><p>Doc paused. “Well, if you’re sure… I have some last-minute things to sort out with the ship. So I’ll meet you on Earth, yeah?”</p><p>“Yeah, meet you there!” Etho waved as Doc walked past. When he was out of sight he slid down the wall, sitting heavily on the floor.</p><p>As he leaned his head against the wall, he found that he could hear voices from the other side. He was confused until he read the sign just above him: “Holding Bay: Wall C”. The humans were right there, behind him. He steeled himself. He would meet them before they got to Earth. He would explain to them why they had to be compliant. He would… he would be their friends.</p><p>Only that’s not what happened.</p><p>He couldn’t bring himself to tell them bad news upon bad news upon bad news. When the girl, False, tried to punch him… she had made it very clear to him that this was not going to be easy. He was not welcome among the ranks of the humans, no matter how much he liked them already.</p><p>He left. Not even helping them as much as he had been when he first arrived. He thought letting them choose their new names would be better than giving them, like had been done for him by Doc. It only seemed to complicate the situation. He’d done nothing to ease things for them, and now, appearing on the tiny island after a flash of light, the fighting that the humans brought to the naturally peaceful crew felt like a sign of the future. </p><p>It had begun.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading~</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Interlude 1: Crew List</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Updated Crew List:</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Administrators:</p>
<p>Xisuma</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Engineers:</p>
<p>Doc M. ‘77</p>
<p>Etho</p>
<p>Hypno</p>
<p>Impulse S.V.</p>
<p>Iskall ‘85</p>
<p>iJevin</p>
<p>Tango Tek</p>
<p>Zedaph</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Artists:</p>
<p>B. Double O. ‘100</p>
<p>Keralis ‘1</p>
<p>Ren the Dog</p>
<p>Wels Knight</p>
<p>“Zombie” Cleo</p>
<p> </p>
<p>New Members:</p>
<p>Cub Fan ‘135 (named by Iskall)</p>
<p>False Symmetry (self-named, last name added by Wels)</p>
<p>Grian (self-named)</p>
<p>Joe Hills (self-named, last name added by Wels)</p>
<p>Mumbo Jumbo (named by Grian)</p>
<p>Scar (named by Cub)</p>
<p>Stress Monster ‘101 (self-named, last name and number added by Ren and Keralis, respectively)</p>
<p>TFC (self-named from lingering fragmented memories)</p>
<p>Vintage Beef (named by Ren)</p>
<p>xB (named by Jevin)</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. You're gonna love this part</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>X teleported out of the path of the angry False Symmetry, who had, upon hearing X was the Admin, tried to attack him.</p>
<p>A moment after this, X removed control from the bodies of the humans (a lot of whom were shouting or attacking or crying) which rendered the humans to a semi-paused state. They wouldn’t be able to move or speak, but they could hear.</p>
<p>“Etho.” X said.</p>
<p>Etho winced. “Yeah?”</p>
<p>“Did you… explain?”</p>
<p>“N-not really. I tried to, but… I got nervous.”</p>
<p>X sighed.</p>
<p>“Etho, X put you in charge of the humans?” Doc said, taken aback.</p>
<p>“…Yeah.” Etho said.</p>
<p>Doc sent a glare straight at X, which surprised Etho. “We can’t do it the same as we always do it, X. Ten people are too many for just Etho to handle,” he explained, suppressing a growl.</p>
<p>Etho hadn’t thought of it that way.</p>
<p>X shrugged. “Etho asked for it. But, yes, I see what you mean. You’ll help him take care of the new members, in that case.”</p>
<p>“What!? But I-” Doc stopped himself and growled. “Fine. Better than nothing.”</p>
<p>“Good. Alright. Now then, I already explained the basics to the humans. What they need to hear now, I expect Etho will know better than I. Ping me, Etho, when you think you’re done talking with them. The rest of us are going to get started, yes?” X said, looking around at the rest of the crew.</p>
<p>“Yeah, let’s get to it! I’ve got so many ideas already!” said Ren, tail wagging.</p>
<p>The rest of the crew nodded along and began to set off, swimming to the nearest landmass.</p>
<p>Soon all that was left were the frozen humans, Etho, and Doc.</p>
<p>Doc plopped himself down on the ground, kicking up a mini dust storm of sand-particles. “Well, Etho. What have you got to say to them?” He seemed a bit miffed that he’d been roped into helping. He usually avoided mentoring new crew members and had only ever mentored Etho.</p>
<p>Etho hummed nervously, thinking. “Well, uh. Humans, I didn’t do my job very well. I got nervous like I said, and I was put on the spot when I first met you. So… I’m sorry for that. I’ll do my best to help you all understand what’s really at stake here.” Etho paused, trying not to get so nervous that his throat would lock up like it sometimes did, “You all have a week to prove you’re… peaceful enough to coexist as crew members. As long as you’re civil — and I know that’s gotta be hard for some of you, trust me, I know — you’ll be able to stay with us. If you’re not… well, you’ll be… you’ll be…”</p>
<p>“Etho? They’ll be what?”</p>
<p>“Erased, Doc. X will get rid of them if they’re not… good enough for him.” Etho couldn’t help the venom in his voice.</p>
<p>Realization seemed to dawn on Doc. “Oh Gods, Etho.” said Doc, voice low and quiet, “I had no idea X was that against this.”</p>
<p>Etho scoffed, and sat down angrily, crossing his legs. “I must have really annoyed him… I just- I really wanted to make sure to keep as much of Earth as possible, ya know? It… meant a lot to me.”</p>
<p>Doc sighed. “Yeah. I know.”</p>
<p>Etho shook his head, remembering what he was supposed to be doing. “A-anyway. Um, humans. So a bunch of our crew members filled in the gaps for your names, just to sorta help things along. I’m pretty sure you know your new names already, since X put them into your minds with his,” Etho waved his hands vaguely, “ya know, Void powers. Um, so I guess what I need, what I’d like from all of you is… to try and go with the flow. Being a Hermit isn’t all bad. In fact, I don’t think it’s bad most of the time. You have a lot of freedom to build whatever you want, and the Minecraft system makes it easy. We have community events with everyone in the crew, we make our own games, our own shops for resources we find useful, and best of all, we make our own bases! So really, I think it’s the ideal environment to, uh, get over massive amounts of abstract grief.” Etho ended abruptly.</p>
<p>“…Is that how you thought of it, Etho?” Doc said. Etho couldn’t place the tone.</p>
<p>He shrugged and nodded.</p>
<p>Doc looked at him thoughtfully. It made Etho look away. “I’m going to ping X to un-freeze them.” Etho said, pulling up his communicator screen.</p>
<p>“If anyone’s still mad,” warned Doc, as Etho typed, “You’ll have to answer to me.”</p>
<p>Etho pressed send. After a few moments, all the humans gasped for breath, and most of them fell straight to the ground.</p>
<p>The one called Grian had never moved from his position of lying on the ground until he was unfrozen. He sat up and began staring daggers at Etho with an implacable look in his eyes. A shiver ran down Etho's spine.</p>
<p>The rest of them murmured amongst themselves for a spell. Then they pushed TFC closer to where Etho was sitting (he got up once that happened, and dusted himself off). </p>
<p>TFC cleared his throat. “We understand our situation, and are willing,” he shot a look at False, “to comply.”</p>
<p>The tension in Etho’s shoulders deflated. “Oh, that’s great to hear!” he smiled widely, “I promise I’ll keep you all safe.” He bowed.</p>
<p>“Etho, you nerd.” teased Doc.</p>
<p>“What, I can’t make a promise??” Etho shot back.</p>
<p>“You can make a promise, but doing some human custom? My mind boggles at you, sometimes.”</p>
<p>Etho narrowed his eyes and straightened up from the bow.</p>
<p>“My mind boggles at you,” Etho said in mock retaliation.</p>
<p>“So, uh, how do we… be Hermits?” interrupted TFC.</p>
<p>“Oh yeah.” Etho laughed, “You’re gonna love this part.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Interlude 2: Trouble-shooting</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An excerpt from “Common trouble-shooting for Minecraft Admins and Users, from the Minecraft program READ_ME”.</p><p> </p><p>Problem: I don’t understand the mechanics and/or usages of the new world!</p><p>Solution: Minecraft saves databanks of information about the world it has been applied to under a manual that will appear in the inventory of the Admin. There is a section of naturally generated recipes for tools and other items based on the applicability of available resources detected by Minecraft. If you are not an Admin or are terraforming without the assistance of others, the manual is instead found in your ship’s computer in an adjacent locale to the encoded world.</p><p>Problem: The world is too dangerous and I can’t fix it without experiencing death multiple times!</p><p>Solution: Minecraft can run in a pared-down version called ‘creative’. In it, you will exist as an untouchable entity and will have access to resources randomly teleported to you when summoned by you. This version has been known to be uncomfortable to use for long periods of time, so it is suggested to only be used in extreme circumstances.</p><p>Problem: I have a problem with my Admin!</p><p>Solution: Report your Admin. Your complaint will be reviewed in a timely manner.</p><p>Problem: I have experienced a bug in the Minecraft system!</p><p>Solution: Report the problem to the bug tracker program on your ship computer. The bug will be replicated, understood, and fixed.</p><p>Problem: I am alone and bored!</p><p>Solution: View examples of other builds created by users all around the galaxy on Minecraft:system:users:builds on your ship computer. It is a regularly updated database that you may opt into contributing to in your settings under the ‘social’ tab.</p><p>Problem: I miss having memories of members of my species and the world I used to call home!</p><p>Solution: Ask your Admin to perform a secondary memory wipe. Unnecessary emotions should abate. If you have no Admin, perform a manual self-reset using the ship computer. The option should be found under the ‘mind’ tab.</p><p>Problem: I don’t like the idea of building things for Void-folk! They seem parasitic! I think colonization is bad!</p><p>Solution: The worlds are not destroyed. The previous inhabitants know no difference. Encoding and virtualization is the most peaceful way to give ourselves the space we undoubtedly need. Every world is treated with care and respected once it comes into the possession of colonizing Void-folk.</p><p>Problem: I am the admin and I feel my crew is turning against me!</p><p>Solution: Leave the world for a week and return. If the problem still isn’t fixed, reset the problem crew members (or all of them, if need be).</p><p>Problem: I have been kidnapped by aliens and am expected to terraform my own world with them!</p><p>Solution: Comply.</p><p> </p><p>Excerpt ends.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>full chapter tomorrow!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Suspicious</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Grian was very suspicious. This Etho person was… too nice. He looked familiar too, somehow, though Grian had no idea why.</p>
<p>He hadn’t spoken up since Etho had first started teaching the lot of them what were apparently the universal mechanics of the Minecraft program. It was based in, unsurprisingly, mining and crafting. He practically sang praises of what he called the fun parts of the program. And his voice was higher-pitched in excitement on seeing the kinds of things Earth, in particular, had to offer.</p>
<p>When Mumbo asked why he liked Earth so much, Etho suddenly got very quiet.</p>
<p>Grian narrowed his eyes, and Etho — sensing that suspicion — glanced his way for a moment, only growing more nervous-looking as the silence dragged on.</p>
<p>“Um,” he said, “Maybe I’ll tell you when we’re better friends?”</p>
<p>Grian frowned. This guy was not earning his friendship any time soon.</p>
<p>The very intimidating Doc, a cyborg mixed with a creature Grian had never seen before (it looked like it was half made of plants, somehow) had at some point taken five volunteers to go with him to get started. The five were TFC, xB, Mumbo, Cub, and Scar. Grian had no idea how they could so easily trust these people so quickly. Sure, the show that Etho had put on with his ‘I love Earth and humans’ thing was convincing, but… Grian just didn’t buy it.</p>
<p>That left Grian, Joe, Stress, False, and Beef to stay with Etho for their practical lessons in how to survive the Minecraft system. Doc had said, before he left, something like ‘grind, optimize, automate, thrive’. It didn’t sound all that fun to Grian. If he were really resigning himself to compliance, he’d say he was more interested in joining the artists' team. But he wasn’t compliant. He would just… pretend to be for the week, to avoid dying. Maybe he’d pull a prank or two if he could get away with it.</p>
<p>And he wasn’t excited. This was Earth that these people would be terraforming. It was… altered. It was…</p>
<p>Grian looked out at the sea as False and Etho rowed a large boat with six seats that Etho had requested of that Admin guy. It was beautiful. The sunlight sparkled across the waves in an intoxicatingly vibrant dance. Grian didn’t know where he was from, but he knew he hadn’t lived too far from this. It was too beautiful to stay away from.</p>
<p>It was just like it had always been, he knew. Nothing looked any different. It was calm.</p>
<p>Almost like the world hadn’t ended.</p>
<p>Grian looked back toward Etho. Maybe. Maybe Grian would give him the benefit of the doubt. Even if he wasn’t human, he looked it. And acted it too.</p>
<p>Then Grian realized something, as he watched the silver-haired man row like he did it all day every day. Etho probably knew more about humanity, about Earth, than he did. His memories were gone. He didn’t know much of anything about Earth. Nothing specific, at least. Just flashes. Familiar feelings. Words on the tip of his tongue.</p>
<p>He knew the ocean had always been beautiful.</p>
<p>Etho knew a lot more.</p>
<p>Grian couldn’t help the glare that grew on his face as he kept staring at Etho. When Etho noticed, he blinked in surprise and did his best to look anywhere else. Grian didn’t like that he liked making him uncomfortable. He tore his gaze away and glared into the water instead.</p>
<p>If Grian ever got that guy alone, he’d be answering some questions. Then maybe he’d be fine, not fine, resigned enough to keep living and working for these people. The Hermits.</p>
<p>And that Admin… his presence… something about him was weirdly familiar too. In a different way from Etho. Like he remembered the Admin, the power he had, from a dream. Like Deja vu. Somehow… he knew that the color of Void-folk eyes were almost always purple. That purple shone through the Admin’s visor like nothing he’d ever seen. Familiar eyes he’d never seen.</p>
<p>Grian screwed his eyes shut. His head was starting to hurt. He told himself it was just the glare of the sun on the water, flashing and hurting his eyes.</p>
<p>Joe called out from the front seat of the boat, snapping Grian out of his thoughts. “Land ho!”</p>
<p>Grain leaned out and looked ahead, and sure enough, a landmass was appearing in the distance. Grian wondered what it had been called. Or if the Minecraft program even preserved landmasses at all. This might be a whole new thing, generated out of advanced alien code.</p>
<p>After the day Grian had had, nothing was impossible.</p>
<p>It was maybe another five agonizing minutes of rowing before they finally made landfall. Joe tried to step out of the boat gracefully but face-planted into the sand. Grian couldn’t help it when his face broke out into a sudden smile. He covered it with a hand and regained his composure while he waited for the front of the boat to clear so he could walk across it and hop onto the sand himself.</p>
<p>Etho, last to disembark, opened up the hologram on his wrist and seemed to type something in. A few moments later, the boat vanished into a flurry of purple particles. Etho smiled from behind the mask and looked up at them, avoiding Grian’s eyes.</p>
<p>“Alright. So, I’m gonna give you all copies of the manual generated for Earth. It’ll tell you crafting recipes for tools and other important stuff to get us all started. Just gotta… get the copies, hang on a second.” Etho typed rapidly into his hologram communicator.</p>
<p>A moment later, Grian saw a thin pamphlet materialize on the sand in front of each of them, except for Etho, whose pamphlet appeared above his head and fluttered down to the ground before he could catch it.</p>
<p>Grian picked up the thing and flipped it open to a random page. In it were item names with descriptions and 3x3 square tables containing what looked like representations of the materials needed. The one he was looking at was a bookshelf. It had reference numbers referring to the crafting recipe for books. He flipped to that page. Leather and paper. He flipped to the page for paper. The recipe table flashed as it went through the possible materials to use for the paper. Reeds. Sugarcane. Cattails, somehow. Some type of grass Grian had never heard the name of.</p>
<p>The recipes were very simple looking. Just like a game.</p>
<p>After a few minutes, Etho spoke up again, clearing his throat to get their attention. “So, we all understand? Lots of stuff to mess around with! But, ah, we’ll want to at least get a safe enough shelter before nightfall.”</p>
<p>“Why before nightfall?” False asked.</p>
<p>“Well… the Minecraft system is, ya know, kind of like a game, right? There are… enemies.” Etho said.</p>
<p>“…Why? Aren’t we just supposed to build things?” Stress pointed out.</p>
<p>“Yes, but I’ve heard that a bunch of research went into the decision to add things to fight. It keeps the process from becoming too stale. Keeps terraformers on their toes, always working to improve. Or something like that, anyway. Earth has a pretty balanced day-night cycle, so we have plenty of time to get something simple together. And, oh! I think I forgot to mention. If you die, you’ll just respawn back where we started or at any comfortable enough bed you sleep on.”</p>
<p>Everyone froze for a moment, processing this.</p>
<p>“‘If we die??’ We can- we can just cheat death? We’ll just ‘respawn’?” Beef said, sounding supremely confused.</p>
<p>“Uh-huh,” replied Etho.</p>
<p>Beef paused. “That’s… that’s kinda cool.”</p>
<p>“Yup! Anyway, let’s get to it!” Etho said cheerfully.</p>
<p>Like they had any other choice.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Learning while panicking is good, right?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Aaalright, guys,” started Doc, looking over the group of humans he’d taken responsibility for. He smiled, they didn’t seem too scared of him, “Let’s get down to basics.”</p><p>The mustached man, Mumbo, who was actually as tall as Doc, raised his hand.</p><p>“…Yes, Mumbo?”</p><p>Mumbo lowered his hand. “Um, so there are two teams, right? The artists and the engineers?”</p><p>Doc nodded and waved a hand for Mumbo to elaborate.</p><p>“How does one… qualify to be an engineer? Because, I don’t know about anyone else but, I’m really not good with art stuff.”</p><p>“While I am curious about the engineer stuff too,” added Cub, “I’m wondering if maybe I could do both?”</p><p>Doc tilted his head in thought. He’d never considered that someone might be suited to both teams. But the overall team make-up was currently a little unbalanced. They needed more artists than engineers. “To answer your question first, Cub, we’ll have to see what X thinks about that. As for Mumbo’s question… Engineers are primarily experts in Redstone. I also do engineers work around the ship, but mostly what we do is build machines that provide useful materials to the other Hermits, and ultimately the Void-folk. That’s not really too important right now, though. First, like I said, we need to get you guys ready to take on the night without dying. The basics.”</p><p>“…So this Minecraft program is… dangerous…?” asked Scar, voice quiet.</p><p>“If you don’t know what you’re doing, absolutely,” replied Doc.</p><p>“Ah.” Scar said, losing himself in thought moments later.</p><p>“Anyways, here, I got some booklets for you all…” Doc opened his inventory and handed out the manuals to each human.</p><p>“These will help you get started. If you need help, gesture like so,” Doc brought his left arm up as though he were looking at a watch, and with this movement, the holographic communication screen materialized above it, “select my name and type out your problem. If you need to tell me your co-ordinates, that displays here,” he pointed to the top left corner, “Any more questions?”</p><p> “Are you just gonna leave us all here?” asked xB.</p><p>“Yep. Good luck, I believe in you, all that,” Doc started off in a random direction, quite happy to be rid of all the newbies.</p><p>“W-wait! You can’t just- we still have so many questions!” Mumbo shouted as Doc continued to get further away, just then wading waist-deep in the ocean off the coast.</p><p>Doc waved, and shouted back, “Use the booklets! They’ll tell you everything you need!”</p><p>Doc began to swim in the sea and decided to forget all about them, at least for the rest of the day. He’d check back on them maybe an hour or so before nightfall and see how they were doing.</p><p>He’d always felt that learning under pressure was helpful. He chuckled inwardly. He remembered doing something similar to Etho. The shapeshifter had no real form at the time, so he was sort of disconcerting to be around. Etho’s nervous energy always got to him too, and back then he didn’t want to deal with it.</p><p>He still felt kind of bad about what happened after that. Doc had fallen asleep and Etho had been left alone that whole night. He’d been killed five times. Luckily, Etho didn’t blame him at all. He just worked to better himself.</p><p>This time, though, with these humans, Doc wanted to make sure they didn’t suffer needlessly to learn the same lessons Etho had. If they were doing well and had a shelter made up and everything before nightfall, Doc figured he could just take note of that and stay where he was without having to go and fix their mistakes.</p><p>It was a good plan. And it gave him time to start on his own projects. There was a landmass that Doc had seen in the manual’s map that he thought might make a nice starting location. It had a lot of plants, which were almost always usable in the generated Minecraft recipes.</p><p>It was a bit of a swim, but the infinite energy that every hermit had as long as they were above a certain level of nutrition made it no issue. It would just take a little time.</p><p>Doc smiled to himself. This would be no issue at all.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, uh, Doc?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Why’d you decide to call me Etho? What’s it mean?”</p><p>“…It’s a word that helps describe a core belief behind a culture. Morality, basically.”</p><p>“…”</p><p>“Your world was full of people who were more peaceful than any I’d ever seen. I thought your name should reflect that, in a way.”</p><p>“… I wish I could remember.”</p><p>“We all wish we could remember where we came from, Etho.”</p><p>“I know.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>There will be a short interlude next, and one more Doc POV chapter (within next week). Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Interlude 3: Tythus-b</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Excerpt from the “Minecraft generated manual for Tythus-b; Section 6: Hostile Creatures”.</p><p>[Half of a diagram of a creature from three separate angles. It might be compared to a bear, were bears made of vines.]</p><p>Dangerous if provoked, especially when flowering. Normally [text becomes unreadable.]</p><p>[Blurred picture of a pink flower-like structure from the forehead of the creature. It looks more like a paper flower than not.]</p><p>Creeper</p><p>[Diagram of the creature from three separate angles. It looks as though it is covered with leaves. It has four legs, upon which is a stem-like body ending in a head with evolutionarily rendered intimidating features.]</p><p>Will try to get close. If it does, it will explode using a reservoir of sulfur-based pods that carry spores. Explosion is moderately destructive and can be deadly. Juvenile Creepers can be found in areas with high sulfur concentration, though they are usually too well camouflaged to identify. The modern Creeper is suspected to be a cousin species to the sentient population-</p><p>Excerpt ends.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>full chapter tomorrow or the next day!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Let's think of something else (and fail to)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Doc sat in a chair he’d crafted from some tree branches on the beach of the island he’d claimed, glaring at the screen on his wrist. He had been getting interrupted in his gathering of useful materials for the past hour or so. His communicator kept buzzing with messages from Mumbo. Doc had resigned himself to taking care of Mumbo’s copious concerns, staring in annoyed anticipation for the next ping announcing something like: “i figured out how to mine” or “i saw a sea turtle!!”</p><p>It was only after another five definitely non-emergency messages that Doc realized Mumbo wasn’t waiting for him to reply. It seemed like he just wanted to say things. Eventually, Doc wrote out a single reply that he was certain would stop the messages.</p><p>Docm77&gt; please sttop pinging me.</p><p>He never said it was creative. But, as far as Doc could tell, the messages had stopped. He sighed in relief and got up from his chair, stretching. While he did, he noticed the sky had started to change color as the planet rotated and the star began to slide out of view. It was a lovely light show. A deep red that made the clouds of water vapor glow pink. The sea reflected it too, a little more orange-looking.</p><p>His own world had had skies much more vibrant. Deeper colors all minutes of the short day. Rays of light from the two stars inter-mixing in the thick air, forming columns of vapor rainbows that rose from the moisture in the ground as the day reached zenith every sixteen earth minutes. The light was powerful and deadly to any who were not accustomed to the particular radiation that danced in-between the weaving colors that the stars erupted with constantly. The species that evolved there, on Tythus-b, were hardy, plant-based things. Like him.</p><p>Now that place belonged to the Void-folk. Doc tried not to imagine them living in and using the things he’d built there. He tried not to imagine the massive vines and the docile creatures and the boiling vapor-air vanishing as the Void-folk slowly expanded across the surface of the planet, taking every inch of space up with their homogenous purple buildings and their burning energy converters and their nether portals that would fester with that mismatched, roiling plane of Void particles.</p><p>Doc tried not to imagine it.</p><p>Just the same as he tried not to imagine all the other worlds he’d been to, suffering just the same. Even that world Etho had come from. It was so much like the descriptions of the original Void, the place that X had once described on an off day. It swam in purple and black air that was rarely touched by the starlight of the little red dwarf it was locked into a staring dance with. The atmosphere was so thick with Void, that the heat of the star was distributed evenly across the surface as the particles absorbed and transferred the energy. The surface was a dim, constant glowing mirror of a place, the ground made up of dark crystals that formed so large, the facets went on for miles. The beings there had very few needs, survival-wise. With so strong, but, according to X, primitive connection to Void, the people were ethereal. Doc had only one example of them to study, of course, but the manual had held further clues to what had been erased. He knew that the people Etho had come from were peaceful if nothing else.</p><p>Etho’s world (it had never been named as Etho and his people found names to be generally unimportant) was small. They’d been there for maybe an earth month; a rush job. Doc suspected X didn’t like being reminded of his own origins so thoroughly.</p><p>Doc tried not to imagine that place as it probably was now. That quiet, echoing expanse that Etho got lost in the background of so easily. Mined and gutted for the crystal it was made of. Not even suitable for Void-folk to live on full-time anymore.</p><p>Every single one of the Hermits held a forgotten tragedy. Doc remembered the most out of all of them, besides X himself. It was always harder, Doc thought, to watch someone else suffer a forgotten loss than to forget a loss yourself.</p><p>The sky had grown dark as Doc watched the planet turn. He shook himself out of his thoughts. He had some humans to check up on.</p><p>He checked his communicator. Nothing new. He typed out a message.</p><p>Docm77&gt; Mumbo, are you and the humans alright? you’d better have a shelter together or you’ll probably all die</p><p>Doc only had to wait a moment.</p><p>MumboJumbo&gt; we’re fine, i think, thatnks</p><p>MumboJumbo&gt; *thanks</p><p>Docm77&gt; if any of you die, i’ll be responsible for it. so don’t</p><p>MumboJumbo&gt; ok</p><p>MumboJumbo&gt; i’m concerned that it doesn’t seem to matter to you all that much tho</p><p>MumboJumbo&gt; i was willing to take things in stride, but…</p><p>Docm77&gt; oh, if you die, you’ll respawn. i forgot to say. It’ll display on your stat sheet, but other than that you’ll technically be fine</p><p>MumboJumbo&gt; :O</p><p>Docm77&gt; sorry, i don’t die all that much, so sometimes i forget it even happens</p><p>From there, Mumbo stopped replying.</p><p>Doc shrugged to himself and looked back at the sky.</p><p>It was getting really dark now. He could see the stars.</p><p>He imagined one of the pinpoints was really a pair, twirling around each other.</p><p>Warm like nothing he’d felt since.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>we'll be getting back to Grian next week! Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. The world is not so kind, but maybe other people are</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Grian stared at the first page of the manual. Then he looked in front of him. A palm tree. Grian looked back at the manual. The tree. The manual. The tree. The manual.</p><p>He stopped and sighed quietly. He looked over his shoulder. There was already a small hut made of palm wood and a campfire where Stress and Beef were slowly rotating some speared salmon from a nearby river. They chatted amicably, though Grian couldn’t hear what they were saying from where he was.</p><p>Grian looked over at the tree again. He felt very silly, but he had seen Etho demonstrate this. To get wood, you just had to… pretend to punch the tree while you looked at it. Then the Minecraft program would eventually break off a section of the tree and you’d get a bunch of these little representations of wood when the whole thing toppled to the ground. From there, the wood would go into your inventory that you could access by tapping your waist where a belt would be. A hologram like the communicator would display, and when you selected an item, it would pop into existence right in your hand. You could even do this from your mind to a certain extent, according to Etho.</p><p>He punched at the tree. Then he had wood. From there, having read a fair bit of the manual, Grian knew what to do.</p><p>Workbench, pickaxe, get almost any type of stone, stone pickaxe, and so on.</p><p>It was already getting dark by the time Grian reached what was apparently the lower limit of the Minecraft program. His communicator had buzzed, which made him jump, and it displayed an error message: ‘Cannot dig below this point’. He looked up from the massive narrow hole he’d dug. Cave-ins were a non-issue, as he’d found out first hand. If this had been real life, he’d have had a lot more trouble. As things stood, he was, according to his communicator’s co-ordinates, about sixty meters down.</p><p>He wasn’t even tired.</p><p>Grian had read the Hostile Creatures section of the manual. The darkness meant that things could appear, materializing from behind trees, and clawing up from under the ground where previously there was nothing. Zombies and Skeletons. The manual explained that Minecraft would take myths into account when creating danger. Undead creatures were certainly that. Grian didn’t want to be in a vulnerable place when the night came.</p><p>He’d picked up some mineral as he dug which he was happy to identify as usable for torches, which would burn near-infinitely once crafted. A good thing to have when lighting up this man-made cave he’d started to dig out from his position in the hole. He’d even incidentally picked up enough palm fronds from punching down trees that he was able to craft a bedroll.</p><p>If this were a real survival situation, Grian probably would have just slowly wasted away as he struggled to get anything done. Here he was, nearly comfortable, and certainly safe.</p><p>In the morning, he’d dig himself a staircase out. Then maybe he’d try his hand at building a nicer house than the hut the others had made with Etho’s help. Grian had the material for it, after all that digging.</p><p>He’d build something better than everyone else, just to annoy them.</p><p>Especially Etho. Grian really wanted to annoy him.</p><p>He’d gotten them into this mess, after all.</p><p>Grian tried lying on the bedroll he’d crafted. For about a minute, he managed to fool himself into thinking it was comfortable. After five minutes, he’d conceded that there was absolutely no chance of him getting any sleep on the thing. It didn’t help that he was trying to sleep with a bright, ever-burning torch just next to him. And if he faced the wall to block out the light somewhat, his shoulder would hurt from the hard stone beneath the bedroll, and he’d start feeling claustrophobic.</p><p>He sat up angrily and pulled his pickaxe from his inventory. If he couldn’t sleep, he might as well keep digging. So dig he would.</p><p>He set about expanding the room, the pick taking about a meter square every time like Grian had seen Etho do on the ship. It seemed the ship had been within the Minecraft program back then. If any of them had known, they might have been able to break the ship itself.</p><p>Not that it would have made a difference.</p><p>Grian had been wondering whether the ship had a name (it had to have, right?), when suddenly the stone he was hewing into gave way into not more stone, but instead a bright, hot deluge of molten rock. As Grian danced away in a blind panic, narrowly avoiding the lava, his only thought was, ‘why didn’t I notice how hot it had been getting?’.</p><p>Now the tiny room he’d made was practically an oven, as the lava (or was it magma, if it was underground?) continued to flow in. The rate at which it did so had slowed from the sudden break that Grian had caused, but it was clear that the volume of lava was going to be more than enough to fill the place. His bedroll had burnt to a crisp not long after the lava had covered the floor, and Grian had hopped onto a pile of cobblestone he’d placed before his feet could burn in the forbidden soup. He did not mourn the loss of the bedroll. But imagined he would mourn the loss of his life.</p><p>He frowned and fanned himself in a weak attempt at cooling down, which only served to waft ashes into his face. His eyes watered and he squinted.</p><p>He hopped up onto another pile of cobblestone (it stacked like gravity barely existed), and stood slowly, reaching toward the ceiling with his pick. Thinking he might just make the room large enough to avoid drowning in lava, he started to remove the stone just above him, when he realized with horror that there was a radiating heat from straight above him as well. There was no way he’d risk getting lava dunked on his head on his first night.</p><p>Grian laughed a grim laugh. It was just his luck to barely avoid hitting lava on what he had to assume was all sides. He wondered if the open-air night-time was half as dangerous as this.</p><p>Having run out of options, he decided — however disappointing it was — to abandon the place entirely and make his way back up to the surface. It seemed he could just fill the missing stone in with the cobble. If he put some dirt up near the top of the hole, it’d be like he’d never dug there at all.</p><p>He got to work, making his way back to the place he came from, making a path through the lava with his cobble as he went. He looked up the hole.</p><p>He could see a star. It might have been a planet, but there was no point of reference for Grian to tell for sure. Either way, it was a tiny, steady light. Grian kept his eyes on it for a few moments, waiting for it to shift, but if it did he couldn’t tell. He started to hop and place his way up.</p><p>The heat of the lava faded, and the cool night air beckoned him ever upwards.</p><p>If he’d been less exhausted, he might’ve paid attention and stopped basking in that open-air, and noticed the skeleton with a gnarled bow and arrow pointed straight at his back. It fired off a shot, and all Grian could do was yelp. He fell to his knees and turned around, spotting both the arrow sticking out of his back, right between his shoulders (it didn’t hurt, just stung a bit) and the unnaturally animated skeleton, which was clumsily nocking a second arrow. It gave Grian the unnerving impression of a puppet on strings, head tilting strangely, and limbs hanging in the air, too calculated to be real.</p><p>Grian scrambled to his feet and began to run, yanking the arrow out as he went. He sprinted even faster when he heard another arrow whistle past his ear. He rounded a tree and finally found the beach they’d landed at. He gave a relieved sigh/laugh and went, stepping quietly in the soft sand, to sit by the hot coals of the fire.</p><p>After a cursory look around for more enemies, Grian huffed and tossed a log onto the fire. He poked at it with his pick to encourage it to catch.</p><p>“Hey,” said a voice next to him.</p><p>Grian swung his pick around at the voice in surprise, and was doubly surprised when it was stopped in the air by what appeared to be a cloud of Void.</p><p>“Be careful with that. Don’t wanna hurt somebody, do ya?” asked Etho, materializing into his typical form that Grian still felt he recognized from somewhere.</p><p>Grian sighed, annoyed. “If it’s you.” he muttered.</p><p>Etho said nothing for a moment, ignoring his comment. “I’m sorry about Earth. It was… honestly one of the places I’d wanted to visit after I retired. But then we ended up having to… ya know.”</p><p>“It must have been a great place.”</p><p>“Uh-huh.”</p><p>“If only I knew anything about it.” Grian emphasized.</p><p>Etho paused, just looking at him.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Grian, it’s just the way it is for us. All of us. We don’t know where we came from.”</p><p>“And why not? Why does that Void-kind Admin have to… Surely there’s a better way?”</p><p>“…I don’t know. It’s… just the way it is.” Etho sounded resigned. As much as Grian felt.</p><p>“It’s not right.”</p><p>“Maybe not. But we can’t go back to how things were before anyway. I helped terraform my own world, ya know. It’ll never be the same. The best I can hope for is to… retire, and be digitized into my old world. I still won’t remember though, so it’s probably not even worth it.”</p><p>“So just lay down and die? Wait to retire? Work the rest of your life for a people you’ll never meet?”</p><p>“Well, lay down and do art. But… yeah.”</p><p>“Do we get anything in return? At all?”</p><p>“Life.”</p><p>“Life.” Grian repeated, disbelieving.</p><p>“Uh-huh.”</p><p>Neither spoke for a time. Grian stared up at the stars he could no longer name. His heart longed for something as he watched shooting stars trace across the sky for half-a-moment each. He remembered to wish, but not what he wished for.</p><p>“Etho… I don’t think I want to be a part of this at all.”</p><p>Etho sat up straighter with a start. “Don’t-don’t say that! It’ll get better, I swear it will! I-I-I-”</p><p>“We have a week, right?”</p><p>“Well, yes. A week to- to get acclimated. To act out if you need to. After that, X will decide.”</p><p>“Oh, so I can murder you if I feel like it?”</p><p>“…I can’t imagine that would count as just acting out in X’s eyes. He does want us all to be friends.”</p><p>“Hm.”</p><p>Etho said nothing, thinking hard about something.</p><p>“…You barely know me. I can make my own decisions, can’t I?”</p><p>“Yeah. Okay, here’s something I can do,” Etho said, seeming to ignore him, “I think… I can give you a few of my memories of Earth.”</p><p>Grian didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to say no, but… he also didn’t want to say yes. He shook his head, not in refusal, but confusion.</p><p>“Why bother? I doubt it’ll make a difference,” he eventually said.</p><p>Etho stayed silent. When Grian looked at him, his eyes were shut in concentration.</p><p>“Hey, wait, you aren’t just- Oh…” Grian’s mind drifted off into a collection of hazy memories from eyes that saw in purple-tinted tones.</p><p>He saw pictures and words and heard voices that sounded so familiar, and so garbled and alien. Earth came back to him through a filter, pieces falling back into place. But only the background. The place that Earth was. Not the people.</p><p>Grian’s eyes started to tear up. The pinprick lights above blurred into blobs.</p><p>“If you still think you’d rather go… I guess I can’t stop you. I just… wanted to keep as much of Earth alive as I could.”</p><p>Grian sniffed. “I understand.” he paused and tried his best to regain his composure. “I… I’ll stay.” he smiled a sad, determined smile. “I might as well hold onto what I have while I have it.” (Might as well tear this place apart. Might as well cause chaos to an incredible degree. Might as well try and stop the Void-folk doing this to anyone more, he didn’t say.)</p><p>Etho’s eyes crinkled up in what had to be a wide smile.</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>Then Grian’s smile turned impish. He knew why Etho looked so familiar. “You really are a nerd.”</p><p>“Hey!”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>longest chapter yet! Hope you enjoyed it. Next, we'll be getting a short Xisuma chapter, and after that, I'll need extra time to edit things and work out the plot. Expect one chapter next week, probably on Tuesday as well.<br/>Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Optimal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Xisuma was busy. The island they’d decided to designate as the shopping district was still full of trees and a volcano that X was in the middle of tearing apart. It needed flattening if they were going to make use of the space. As he looked down into the caldera (smoldering and ashy, but without visible lava), he wondered if it was really a good idea to build on a volcano. Of course, using Void to see through the ground and past the things he didn’t need to see, he could tell definitively that the thing wouldn’t erupt in any terribly catastrophic manner any time soon. In fact, it was more glorified smoke-stack than anything else. But still. It was a massive amount of work to level the thing to nothing. All he was accomplishing in tearing it down was making way for builds to be set on unsteady ground, where just below would reside a cache of magma.</p><p>Eventually, X thought, it’ll cool down into something like granite. A large amount of it, sure, but it would cool.</p><p>X couldn’t get it out of his head that it was dangerous, though. Even if he’d worked with lava a thousand times before in the nether, it was a whole different beast working with it on a planet, he could already tell. And X had seen what a geologically active planet got up to. It wasn’t safe, but it made for a lot more diversity in life and natural structures.</p><p>It seemed water was a very important component to most every function on Earth, maybe more than geo-activity. The humans were largely composed of it. Plants here needed it, as did many creatures. Void-kind like him didn’t, so to him, it was always so very alien to see an ecosystem based so thoroughly on something he’d only touched a few times in all his life.</p><p>Usually, Void-kind wouldn’t bother with a planet covered to such a high degree in hard to move in, hard to breathe in, hard to get rid of water. It might have made more sense to take over the planet just across the way. Sure, it was cold and covered in rusted sand, but it wasn’t water.</p><p>As X looked out from his perch up on an outcropping of rock on the sheer side of the volcano, he did admit that he’d want to live here, if only for the view.</p><p>But to shoulder this entire planet on such a small crew? It was mad. X hadn’t been able to believe it at first, surely they’d gotten something wrong? Only they hadn’t. They fully believed in the talent of him and his crew. Even now X couldn’t help but feel a warm sort of pride when he thought of how much trust was put in them. It was really wonderful.</p><p>Then he remembered the state of his crew. While the members they’d had for the past nine Earth years were great friends — inseparable even — the new members, all humans, were wild cards. X knew some things about humanity. He knew that large groups (over a hundred, at least) would likely fail to coordinate well enough to fix simple problems. In-group hostility based on trivial things was common. To X, it was paramount above all else to keep memories of the previous humans out of the minds of their new crew members. It would corrupt them, no doubt in his mind. What he’d seen the humans do to themselves, each other, their planet… it was awful. No one else in his crew got to see the negative parts of it.</p><p>It was a common thing to receive transmissions of various types from sentient species. It was the sort of thing picked up in the End fairly often. It was strange, though, that while Void existed as much as it did on Earth, thrumming quietly in the air, completely invisible to the human’s range of sight, humans held no traces of it. Their transmissions were made of light, the opposite of Void. A rare and curious thing to find in the End, light was. Maybe that was what drew the Void-folk to this place. The rare light-based information.</p><p>The humans, especially in the ten of them they had, would certainly bring a new element to their work. X wondered for a moment, as he stood and got back to work, whether they would all learn to love it as much as he did. He hoped so.</p><p>He really didn’t want to have to send them away (like he did the rest of the humans, he pointedly did not think), if only for Etho’s sake. X wished he hadn’t gotten quite so attached to Earth, but it was obviously too late now. Etho would have to step up and take real responsibility for the first time in his remembered life. It would be good for him, thought X.</p><p>They really did need as many people as they could handle, for a job like this. It all came down to Etho (and Doc, he supposed) teaching the humans how to be valuable crew members. If they weren’t, well, that wouldn’t be X’s fault. The Void-folk would agree, were they to review the case.</p><p>It wouldn’t be his fault.</p><p>The system needed to run optimally, after all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>next is a short Etho chapter, then an interlude, probably late this week. I've also outlined a fair bit of the plot, it's just a matter of whether the characters follow it now, haha. Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Etho gets very anxious</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Etho was panicking. He’d been shakily typing out messages to Doc and erasing them and rewriting them and erasing them for the past half an hour. The outline of his form wavered as he struggled to calm himself down.</p>
<p>He’d woken up that morning to Grian, apparently now happy to join up with everyone, chattering to  Stress about the memories that Etho had given to him. Etho had frozen in his tracks once he had been able to make out what they were talking about.</p>
<p>It was a nightmare. He never should have trusted Grian to keep his memories to himself. Now the rest of the humans would expect the same. Would demand the same. Would tear him apart to-</p>
<p>“Etho?” Stress had said, spotting him just behind Grian, who turned to look as well.</p>
<p>Etho couldn’t speak. He’d started at her voice, and took a step back.</p>
<p>“Are you-” Grian began. Etho ran before he could hear anything else.</p>
<p>Now he was sitting in a grotto under an oak tree, trying over and over to ask Doc for help, and failing to send any message every time.</p>
<p>Eventually, his form just dissipated, and he couldn’t do anything more than curl into himself, let alone type. The Void that made up his body buzzed with anxiety, and all he could think of, over and over, was Grian, casually saying how Etho had done a nice thing for him, had given him memories.</p>
<p>If he were human, his heart would have burst ages ago, he thought.</p>
<p>“Etho?” Grian said, from just next to him.</p>
<p>He turned to look, startled beyond belief, but unable to run. Just behind Grian was Stress, looking on curiously, eyes searching. Grian himself was out of breath.</p>
<p>“Are you okay, Etho?” he asked.</p>
<p>“Where is he?” asked Stress, “You’re talking to a tree, Grian.”</p>
<p>“Wha- No, he’s right here,” Grian replied gesturing to him, “…Can’t you see him?”</p>
<p>Stress stepped around to look at where Etho was more directly. She stared through him. “No. Are you alright, Grian? I’m sure he’s around somewhere, but-”</p>
<p>Grian sighed, exasperatedly, “Agh, Stress, he’s right here, just as a cloud of Void.”</p>
<p>“…Void? Grian, I don’t know what it is you think you’re seeing, but you’ve probably gotten way too much sun or something.”</p>
<p>“Uh…” Etho started, having calmed down a fair bit just from listening to something outside of himself.</p>
<p>Stress jumped back and looked around wildly for him.</p>
<p>Etho was finally able to rematerialize, and when he did, Stress’s eyes widened. “Oh.” she said.</p>
<p>“I told you,” Grian said, “Etho, what’s going on?”</p>
<p>Etho surprised himself with the fire in his tone. “You weren’t supposed to tell anyone,” he said, glaring as he wrapped his arms around his knees.</p>
<p>Grian blinked, and suddenly looked very cowed. “Ah, I-I didn’t know it was…”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Etho said, shifting his glare to the moss-covered roots of the tree.</p>
<p>Stress cocked her head. “So… Etho is… a ghost.” she said, looking very contemplative.</p>
<p>Grian shot her a look.</p>
<p>“Alright, so it’s fine. We just have to keep this between… the four of us.” Grian said.</p>
<p>Etho slowly turned to look at Grian. “You’re not telling me what I think you’re telling me, right?”</p>
<p>“…Beef knows too,” he confirmed.</p>
<p>All of Etho’s anger dissipated back into fear. He shook his head to himself, trying to wake himself up from this awful dream. But he didn’t. His form began wavering again, and he buried his head in his hands, whole body shaking.</p>
<p>“Ah, Etho, it’s not that bad. It’ll be fine! Like I said, no one else has to know!” Grian tried. When Etho just shook his head again, he continued, “What’s so bad about us having your memories of Earth anyway?”</p>
<p>“I’d think it’d be fine. You gave them to Grian, after all. Might as well give them to the rest of us, yeah?” Stress said.</p>
<p>Etho inhaled violently, trying to force himself into a more neutral state. He looked up at the two concerned humans.</p>
<p>He coughed. “X would probably kill me if he knew I broke a cardinal rule. ‘no one remembers anything’. I only-” Etho had to stop for a moment to force his voice to stop wobbling so much, “I only gave them to Grian because he said he-”</p>
<p>“Woah, okay, yeah,” Grian interrupted, “I guess that makes sense. My bad for thinking everyone should have those memories too.” he conceded, not doing much to hide the bitter undertone.</p>
<p>“What’d you say to Etho, Grian?” Stress asked, not missing a thing.</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter now!” he replied.</p>
<p>Stress folded her arms and narrowed her eyes at Grian.</p>
<p>“Anyway…” Grian said, “We’ve got to get back and tell Beef not to tell anyone else about this. Etho, do you think you can… uh, come with?”</p>
<p>Etho found he couldn’t answer. He shook his head and curled into himself further.</p>
<p>Grian sat down on a root next to him. “Alright. I can wait. Stress, you can go and take care of Beef, right? I’ll stick around here for a bit.”</p>
<p>“Okay… but you’re gonna have to tell me what you told Etho.” she said.</p>
<p>Grian looked away, and shrugged, feigning apathy. “Fine.”</p>
<p>“It’s a deal then,” she said, and began to walk back decisively.</p>
<p>“Never said when to tell her,” Grian muttered mischievously with a little bark of quiet laughter.</p>
<p>After about ten minutes, both Etho’s hyperventilating and Stress’s footsteps had faded.</p>
<p>Etho spoke up. “Sorry about being so… bad about this. I dunno what it is, but I have a lot of trouble with this kind of thing.”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry about it. We all get nervous,” Grian said, then seemed to think better, “well, maybe not quite that nervous, but, yeah.”</p>
<p>Etho sighed. “Thanks, I guess.”</p>
<p>“…Ready to get back?”</p>
<p>“Uh-huh.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sorry for the late update, the internet was out over the weekend. Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Interlude 4: Coding Error</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An Excerpt of code from an Unnamed planet in the Red-87 System.</p><p>package red87Planet1Sen</p><p>import java.util.sentient</p><p>public class voidLike {</p><p>	choice class savedIntell = File(“.minecraftSavedSentience.sen”)</p><p>	private class formType var(n){</p><p>		choice class savedIntell();</p><p>			if(formType var(n) ! = File(“.minecraftWavelength.sen”))</p><p>			then</p><p>				formType var(0);}</p><p>	private class voidConnection bool(true);</p><p>	private class stability(n){</p><p>		choice class savedIntell();</p><p>			while(File(“.minecraftWavelength.sen” ~= File(“.minecraftTemperance.sen”)){</p><p>				formType(choice);</p><p>			until(File(“.minecraftWavelength.sen” !~= File(“.minecraftTemperance.sen”)</p><p>				formType(0);}</p><p>	private class social(File(“.minecraftTemperance.sen”) &amp; File.set(“.minecraftIndiv.sen)){</p><p>		choice class savedIntell(ind);</p><p>			void;</p><p>			void;</p><p>			void;</p><p>			void{</p><p>				void;</p><p>			}</p><p>			void;</p><p>		//gonegonegonegonegonegonegonegonegone</p><p>//missing files</p><p>//corrup̵̪͖͓̤̜̭͛̋̄̃͘t̵̞̭͔̳̔̆͂ë̸̻͑̈́̾̋̿͜ḑ̴̞̘̞̦̎̂͌͂͒́̊̉͜</p><p>̷̏̅̈́͆͘/̴̮̥̖͔̼͉͝͠͝/̴̫̭̒̒à̵͍̳͚̞̖͚̣̟̊̽͐̍͐͝l̶̢͚̼̆̎̈̓̈́̒̓͝è̷͓͍̣ṛ̴͈̲͙̻͊͠t̶̬̆͒͊̂͆͜ ̴̨̲͈̺̼̼͇̟̾͒̕͜ç̸͎̺͉̙̫̓̀̽ȍ̵̮̙̙̼͊̊͘͠ͅṳ̸̧̗̗̮͙͗͊̈́ṉ̸̢̧̟͂̓c̶̡̢͖̻̔̀̋̿͌͑î̸͚̤̬̬̱̏̐̐̆͆͒̄͠l̴̟̳̗̥͖̟͓̅͂͘</p><p≯̧͚̙̖̮̯̈́̒͒̽̈̈́͗/̴̧̗̠̩͒̑́/̵̹͈̪͍̟̀͘͜v̶̩͆̃͌i̷̻̪̘͇̲͖͎͙̙͛͆͒̔̎͌̚r̵̨̜̠͚̰̺̹̱̈̔ǔ̵͉̱͖̅̿̓̐͐̇̈́s̵̩̹̯̯͚͊͑͐̌ ̶̧̢̯̟̏̉̅͊͋͐͝d̷̺̦̠́͌͐͌̈̏͝e̵͓̙̰̳͖̱͍͐̈́̈̈́͆̑t̷̹̩͍̺̖̪͇̹̎͌́͘͠ͅe̷̱͇͕̋̄̔̓̄̇c̵̡͓̟͙̱̙̖̦̐̅</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Just some fantasy java code that's probably nonsensical and improperly formated. Full chapter tomorrow (sorry for lateness)!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Check in</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Doc strolled into the area he’d left the humans in early in the morning, before the sun was fully visible. It had become more of a proper settlement, even in the few hours that they would have had before nightfall. There were simple cobblestone paths snaking to and from a few small buildings, some more detailed than others. The building that most caught Doc’s eye — it was obvious just looking at it that a fair bit of thought had gone into it, even with the fairly limited materials it made use of — was one that was two-stories tall with rounded windows (as round as you can get using stair blocks) and trapdoor encased planter boxes that contained what Doc recognized as vegetable plants, though he didn’t know which as he was yet unfamiliar with Earth plants at large. The different tones of wood created a contrast that was quite striking. Doc thought he’d only improve it if the surrounding buildings were half as skillfully built.</p>
<p>Looking around at the other builds (some really could only be called shelters, at best) Doc found a wide variety. One of the humans had used swathes of the beach sand to make a mini castle-like structure out of sandstone, and it looked magnitudes better than the thing next to it. A cobblestone slab of a thing, no real roof, featureless besides the door. The last building he could see was not dissimilar to the two-story house, but was significantly less detailed, though Doc saw promise in it. After looking around a bit more, Doc found a trapdoor that led to a ladder down to dig limit. He supposed this was someone's mine, if not a community one. He didn’t bother going down, as he didn’t expect anything extraordinary down there. He didn’t have time to anyway.</p>
<p>“Doc? What’re you doing here?” asked one of the humans from behind him.</p>
<p>Doc turned to look. It was Scar, head tilted in curiosity, gazing at him with a look that was a mix of sheepishness and something Doc couldn’t identify. Doc smiled and got up from his crouch that he’d been in while looking at the trapdoor.</p>
<p>“Just checking in. You guys are doing really amazing on your own. Who built that two-story building? I don’t think even I could make something look that nice.”</p>
<p>Scar blushed a bit and looked away, smiling, “That was- that would be my build. I think maybe I remember being a creative person. Or, at least making things look nice comes pretty naturally for me. Anyway, I’m glad it’s up to standards.” he chuckled with a hint of nervousness.</p>
<p>“Of course it’s up to standards. It’s miles better than every other build here.”</p>
<p>Scar smiled widely. “Thanks. I bet I could do a lot better with… more materials and space. I honestly love how easy it is to completely change how even the landscape looks. I already have a ton of ideas for how to make a nicer path and… it’s so… freeing.” Scar's face fell somewhat, and he looked off toward the horizon. He looked thoughtful and a bit sad. The kind of face Doc saw on crew members often.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to feel guilty,” Doc said.</p>
<p>Scar flinched almost imperceptibly, and he shook his head and put a smile back on his face. “I hope not,” he said.</p>
<p>Doc wasn’t sure he liked the implication. He sighed lightly. “Everyone is gone. They won’t ever know what happened. They won’t ever see you or me. It’s not our place to feel guilty, because we’re not the ones who did this to them.” Doc turned to look at the sunrise. Less red than sunset. “So you can be as happy as you want here.”</p>
<p>Scar stood in thought for a few moments. “If you didn’t do this, then who takes the blame?” he said quietly, almost to himself.</p>
<p>“The Void-folk. We’re at their mercy.”</p>
<p>“Void-folk?”</p>
<p>“Xisuma, our admin, is a Void-kind. A species that’s taking over everything everywhere. X is a good person, though. Kindest Void-kind I’ve ever met. Considerate. He works too hard, sometimes. He’s not perfect, but he wouldn’t… do any of this if he didn’t have to. There are people he has to please, I think. So I wouldn’t blame X either, even if he is the one who…” Doc trailed off.</p>
<p>Scar hummed. “We’re all just trapped in this then.”</p>
<p>“It’s not a terrible fate. There are worse ways to live.”</p>
<p>Scar nodded vaguely.</p>
<p>“I’ve been thinking…” Doc started.</p>
<p>Scar looked at him expectantly.</p>
<p>“We should all meet each other properly. The rest of the crew, the other humans. Sooner the better, I think.”</p>
<p>“Oh, that’s a good idea! I’d like to meet all the people I’ll be working with…” Scar trailed off into his own mind, probably imagining the crew.</p>
<p>“You’d meet them all as time goes on, but a more formal get-together would be better. Usually, the crew only gets one new member every time we terraform a planet inhabited by a sentient population, so it’s much less of a to do. This time… it’s a much different story.”</p>
<p>“…I can’t wait to meet everyone.” Scar said, still somewhat lost in thought, apparently missing what Doc had said.</p>
<p>Doc shrugged to himself. He’d message Etho to get him to help co-ordinate things later. Probably tomorrow. Everyone would still be getting settled for the rest of the day, at least.</p>
<p>The sun had risen fully when the rest of the humans began to wake up. Doc decided he didn’t want to deal with all of them at once, so left them with a curt ‘good work, mostly’ (casting an eye toward the cobblestone structure) and left the same way he had the night before, waving as he walked into the sea and ignoring shouts of dismay.</p>
<p>This time, they sounded less frantic.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Here's the deal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“So…” started Grian, “There’s a Hell dimension.”</p>
<p>Beef turned around from the palm wood house he was putting windows into. He gave him a considering look.</p>
<p>“And you’re telling me this because…?”</p>
<p>“Well,” Grian mimed straightening out a tie, “Have I got the opportunity of a lifetime for you!” He put on an accent that he knew was a stereotypical annoying salesman, though, at Beef’s confused look, he dropped it, remembering that he had more memories of Earth now than the rest of the humans. He coughed. “What I mean is, I want to check it out, and I think having someone to do that with would be good. Etho told me-”</p>
<p>Beef huffed in annoyance at the mention.</p>
<p>“Uh, he told me that gold is pretty common there, and quartz as well. Apparently useful and lovely for builds. And um…” Grian rubbed at the back of his neck. “I guess I want to try and apologize for the… I’m sorry that Etho can’t give you memories too. If I’d known that it was so dangerous for him to do that, I wouldn’t have…”</p>
<p>Beef sighed and shook his head. “Alright, I get it, yeah. It’s not a fun situation for any of us. And-” Beef turned to look at Grian fully, smiling a mostly not sad smile, “we’ve all gotta stick together! So… sure. I’ll go with you to…” Beef seemed to realize for the first time that he wasn’t keen, as his face fell into a vaguely haunted look. “The… Hell dimension. Oh my goodness.”</p>
<p>“Hey, I’m sure it’s not like actual Hell! It’s an alternate dimension, not literally… well, you know. It’ll be fine if we watch each other’s backs!”</p>
<p>“Uhh, right, yeah. Okay. Perfect. It’s all very normal. I’m sure we’ll have a great time.” Beef sounded rather pessimistic.</p>
<p>“Either way, we’re not going right now, we need a bunch of obsidian first. The Minecraft program needs that since it conducts Void well, and if we make a ring of the stuff and set it on fire, it’ll… it’ll make a portal! Somehow. I’m sure it’ll be cool, the way it sounds.”</p>
<p>“Ah. Where does one get… obsidian?”</p>
<p>Grian paused, thinking. It was his turn to be hesitant. “I’m pretty sure it comes from… quickly cooled lava.” his last encounter was still quite vivid in his mind.</p>
<p>“…And we’ll find lava…?”</p>
<p>“Underground. Since we’re near some plate tectonics business, judging by all these islands, there’s… an abundance of the stuff.”</p>
<p>“I see. What are we waiting for then?”</p>
<p>“I did also read that you need something quite high on the Mohs hardness scale to get the obsidian…”</p>
<p>“So we need something stronger than obsidian itself.”</p>
<p>Grian nodded. “The manual only lists a few different minerals as suitable for tools, and of those only one will work on obsidian…”</p>
<p>“And that is?”</p>
<p>“Diamond.”</p>
<p>Beef turned to begin work on his house again. “Alright, here’s the deal. If you can get me a diamond pickaxe, I’ll go with you to the Hell dimension. And I’ll just keep working on this. Yeah?”</p>
<p>Grian was almost indignant, but then remembered that, with the whole ‘Etho’s memories’ fiasco, he really wasn’t in much position to argue. “Alright, deal. I’ll… go mining then.”</p>
<p>“Good luck!” Beef waved as he continued his work, having moved on to the roof.</p>
<p>As soon as Grian was a fair bit away, he whispered to himself in horror, “I have to go mining.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading! Next will be another short chapter, then an aside with Cleo and Joe.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Ice Cold</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>lol i'm back. updated the summary and my username</p>
<p>anyway, hope ya'll will like</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hallo, Etho!”</p>
<p>Etho jumped, and dropped a bucket of fish. “Iskall!” Etho clutched at where his heart would be in mock (and genuine) surprise.</p>
<p>Iskall laughed heartily. “I haven’t seen you in a while, what with you mentoring half the humans… I wanted to stop by, see if you guys needed anything. I’m pretty well set, myself. Got a shop already!”</p>
<p>“Really? What’re ya selling?”</p>
<p>“A substance I decided to call ‘Iskallium’. The manual says it’s useful for redstone. You can use it to make sticky pistons and make it into blocks to build even more complex things… I’m sure our engineers are going to have a lot of fun with it.”</p>
<p>“Huh. Where do you get it?”</p>
<p>Iskall winked (Etho assumed, he only had one natural eye) and waggled his finger at him. “That’s a trade secret, my friend.” He smiled and laughed again, and Etho couldn’t help but smile too.</p>
<p>“Uh, as for us needing help… I think we’re doing alright, considering.”</p>
<p>“That’s good-”</p>
<p>“Hey, Etho! I need some help with-” Grian yelled as he ran toward them and then tripped into the sand. He scrambled back to his feet and ruffled the sand from his hair, making his way over, panting.</p>
<p>“Oh, Grian, this is Iskall. He’s one of our engineers.” Etho motioned to Iskall, who put a hand up and wiggled his fingers in greeting.</p>
<p>“Nice to meet you, human!”</p>
<p>Grian cocked his head. “You look… sort of human yourself.” he said, sounding mystified.</p>
<p>Iskall chuckled. “That’s just a visual thing. This here,” Iskall tapped at the blue and green mechanism that replaced his left eye, “it takes cues from the minds of others and makes them see what they expect to see. In reality, I’m much taller.” Iskall could only keep a straight face for a second.</p>
<p>Etho rolled his eyes as Iskall started to laugh (he tried to contain it but it was obvious). “He’s joking, Grian. It’s mostly true, but he’s just… so so short, my goodness, I’ve never met someone so-”</p>
<p>“Hey!” Iskall gave Etho a playful punch to the arm.</p>
<p>Grian was smiling at them both, and laughed himself, but then seemed to remember why he was there. “Oh! Anyway, Etho, I need you to help me find a bunch of diamonds and obsidian. I… don’t want to try mining alone again just yet.” Grian looked away, somewhat embarrassed.</p>
<p>“I can mine with you.” said Iskall.</p>
<p>Grian blinked. “Um.”</p>
<p>“That’s a great idea, Grian! Iskall is a great person to have around if you get in trouble. Plus, it’ll be awesome if you and the other humans work with the rest of the crew to, ya know, get to know everyone.”</p>
<p>Grian hesitated for a moment, then put on a tentative smile. “Alright. Sounds good.” Grian held out a hand for Iskall to shake.</p>
<p>Iskall took it, smiling widely. “I’m sure it’ll be a great pleasure working with you, Grian! I'll come by same time tomorrow, right now I've got some work to do, yeah?” he said, turning back towards the boat he must have arrived in.</p>
<p>Grian gave him a little salute and smiled as well. "I'll see you then!" He stopped smiling once Iskall had turned around, and gave Etho a bit of a look.</p>
<p>And that was all it took to make Etho slouch into himself, suddenly feeling as though he ruined someone's life. He pressed his lips together, tense as he waited for Grian to say something, anything.</p>
<p>He only sighed and rolled his eyes, not in actual annoyance as much as resignation. "It's fine, I don't mind that much, Etho. He does seem like a nice person. It was just sudden, that's all."</p>
<p>Etho straightened up a little, and looked off towards Iskall's boat, headed north. "You sure? I don't want to force you-"</p>
<p>Grian held up a hand, stopping him. "Like I said, I don't mind," he paused, and followed Etho's gaze, "What sort of person is he?"</p>
<p>"Oh, he's really nice. He doesn't even care if I get quiet, ya know, he just carries the conversation if I don't have anything to add. Uh, besides that... sometimes he likes to cause a little trouble, but he's harmless. And..." Etho hummed and tilted his head, trying to think of anything else that Grian might need to know, "He's also pretty great with PVP." Etho nodded, satisfied with his summary.</p>
<p>"Huh. Well, I best get on with making myself a proper starter house, since I'm not going mining today. No complaints from me!" Grian said, rather cheerfully, "See you around, Etho!"</p>
<p>"See ya!" He called back.</p>
<p>He sighed, tension draining from his body. He bent to scoop the still flopping fish back into the bucket. There was little water left in it, most having splashed onto the sand, and his socks and sandals. He grimaced a bit.</p>
<p>Well, he thought, that could have gone a lot worse.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>short little comeback chapter i hadn't posted. i'll be updating once a week from now on (hopefully)! Expect the next one Saturday or early Sunday</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Aside 1: Cleo meets Joe</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cleo scrolled through the list of Hermits on her communicator. The ten new members (she was still quite staggered at the number) were highlighted green, to signify a lack of team affiliation. It was the perfect time to catch someone off-guard and get one free conversation with no strings attached. Before they knew what she was.</p>
<p>She steeled herself and picked a name from the bunch: Joe Hills. A chat box opened, and now all she had to do was type a message out to the human.</p>
<p>ZombieCleo&gt; hey, could you give me your co-ords? I’d like to meet up with one of the humans, and you seem as good as any of them</p>
<p>Cleo pressed her lips together, tensely awaiting a reply. She didn’t have to wait long.</p>
<p>JoeHillsSays&gt; oh, sure, I’m at 20, 304</p>
<p>She let out a relieved huff, and smiled to herself.</p>
<p>ZombieCleo&gt; be there soon</p>
<p>It was a bit of a boat ride, and luckily the waves weren’t too intense, so it didn’t end up taking much longer than half an hour to get there. She waved at the figure that had previously been lazing on the beach (waiting for her) as they waved with both arms to get her attention. Her boat drifted with the tide onto the beach and stuck in the sand heavily. The human hurriedly assisted her in bringing it further ashore to prevent it from catching on the water again and leaving without her. She sat on the beach, a bit knackered after the rather hurried row over, and laid back into the warm sand, arms splayed out. She shut her eyes to the star of this system.</p>
<p>After a moment, the human did the same, judging by the shifting of sand, lying not far off.</p>
<p>She snickered a little. “It’s nice to meet you, Joe.”</p>
<p>“Nice to meet you as well, Cleo.”</p>
<p>His voice surprised her so much that she started with an absolute cackle of a laugh. It was so unlike anything she’d ever heard, in all her years. The drawl, the twang, a perfect storm of accent.</p>
<p>She heard the sand shift, and she squinted (through the starlight and her laughter) at the human, who was sitting up now, gazing at her bemusedly.</p>
<p>“S-say something else, please!” She squeaked.</p>
<p>Joe’s eyes lit up and he smiled widely. “Howdy Cleo, this is Joe Hills, residing as I always do in the middle of nowhere. And, uh, might I ask why you’ve deigned to visit upon me?” </p>
<p>It was an incredible effort on her part to contain the laughter incurred by Joe’s voice and actually answer the question. “Well, I-” She fell back into a laughing fit a moment longer, “I wanted to meet a human is all! Do they all sound like you?”</p>
<p>“Unfortunately, you are speaking with the one and only specimen bearing this wonderful burden.” Joe Hills said, nodding soberly. After maybe a second of silence from the both of them, he dissolved into a high-pitched laugh and Cleo was all too happy to join him in it.</p>
<p>She’d never felt so energized.</p>
<p>With that thought, her laughter slowly died, until all that was left was a sad smile. She propped herself up on her arms, to stare out at the ocean.</p>
<p>Joe scooted forward from where he was sitting to get a good look at her face, looking a bit concerned.</p>
<p>“So, are you satisfied with your decision to meet me, out of all the humans?”</p>
<p>Cleo blinked and frowned. “Yes, I think so. I just… remembered something sad.” She tried a reassuring smile.</p>
<p>Joe nodded in understanding, and shifted his gaze out to the sea.</p>
<p>“Are you… feeling a lot more tired now, Joe?” Cleo asked, dreading the answer.</p>
<p>Joe looked back, a little confused. “Not particularly. Why? Should I?”</p>
<p>Cleo sat up straighter. “Are you sure? You definitely should. Because…” She stopped, biting her lip.</p>
<p>Joe cocked his head and furrowed his brows.</p>
<p>“Because I… I steal other people’s energy by proximity. Most of the time I have to sort of keep away from people so I don’t interfere with their work, so I almost never have quite enough energy,” Cleo paused, gauging Joe’s reaction. He was listening carefully, betraying nothing in his face. “That’s why I’m called Zombie Cleo. I’m like a zombie most of the time.”</p>
<p>Joe sat in silence, considering. “I still feel fine. Maybe it doesn’t work on humans?”</p>
<p>“It does. I can tell. I feel… better, being here. Like I’m supposed to feel. So… why don’t you feel worse?”</p>
<p>Joe shrugged. “I hardly know anything about humans, so I can’t say for sure. If you’re really curious, you could meet up with the rest of the humans and see how it affects them.”</p>
<p>“Maybe it’s just delayed?”</p>
<p>Joe hummed, thoughtful, and rocked back and forth for a few beats.</p>
<p>“I still feel normal.” He said, decisively.</p>
<p>“Anyone else would have passed out by now.”</p>
<p>“Well, in that case, feel free to visit any time.”</p>
<p>Cleo’s eyes widened. “Really? You aren’t… angry I’m using you for energy?”</p>
<p>“Not at all. Everyone needs a friend, you know.”</p>
<p>Cleo blinked. A smile crept onto her face, growing wide as she felt for the first time in all the time she could recall, accepted. She hoped against every moment she had felt guilty for being who she was, and imagined a future where she was… awake. Free from the lethargy that she’d been consigned to. She hoped it would last.</p>
<p>They watched the systems star drift past the horizon, chatting and laughing, with a looming sense in the back of her mind that any moment now, he’ll faint, and she’d never feel so light again.</p>
<p>But it never happened. She waved at his shrinking form on the beach as she rowed out again, the starscape above her brilliant and the moon reflecting a soft white light, highlighting Joe as he waved back.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading!<br/>I went ahead and made a tumblr! eigfic.tumblr.com<br/>If you'd like to ask questions or whatever, visit me there!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Dawn of the third day, I guess</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Grian woke to a sunbeam that had been creeping along the floor of his newly built cabin, shining brightly through the clear glass window that faced east, toward the beach. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep the extra light from hurting his eyes. He turned away from the offending luminance, sighed, and opened his eyes to the slightly darker side of the room, currently sparsely decorated (read: not at all decorated), and began to sit up and rub the sleep from his eyes.</p>
<p>It was a much needed improvement over his first night’s sleep, out on the beach passed out near the bonfire. The Minecraft system was good for streamlining survival, if nothing else. The bed had been fairly easy to craft and was much softer than sand, despite the crafting components being mainly plant fibers. Grian swung his legs out from under the blankets and slipped on his shoes. He sat for a moment more, willing himself to actually face the day.</p>
<p>He’d be going mining with Iskall today. An alien who he’d barely met, very close to a complete stranger if not for Etho’s basic summation of him and the brief chat. Grian shook his head to himself (both to banish sleepiness and at his blind trust).</p>
<p>The room continued to brighten with the sunrise, illuminating the bare room further. It was built out of palm wood primarily, with accents of oak wood lining the edges. The cabin was made up of just two rooms, the bedroom, and the storage room. </p>
<p>His body only seemed to truly require sleep, everything else swept under the proverbial rug with code that now seemed to be the new building blocks of Earth and its inhabitants. There was a small collection of gauges in his inventory screen’s ‘detail’ tab that showed his levels of exhaustion (19/20), nutrition (12/20), and hit points (19/20), and some other things that were listed in Galactic, apparently in an attempt to obscure to those who couldn’t read it (he could, though he didn’t know why, except that he suspected Etho might be able to as well). The three other gauges read ‘sanity’ (17/20), ‘compliance’ (6/20), and ‘space-walk-transmission’ (20/20). Each of these he could understand just fine, except for the last one. It was a slightly rough translation, about as accurate as he could be in English. When he’d first seen it after taking a break from building his cabin, he’d almost messaged Etho right there to ask about it, but thought better, remembering how dangerous the information he held was for them both. Best to be inconspicuous about it, if he really wanted to know. For now, it was just another disconcerting little mystery.</p>
<p>Grain shook off the inventory screen and stretched, standing and making his way through the storage room and out the front door. The air smelled heavily of the sea, and carried in it a tinge of ozone that reminded Grian of last night’s thunderstorm, recalling the few distant rumbles of thunder he’d heard  before becoming dead to the world. It had rained, but not for long. Now, as he looked out at the still orange-tinted morning skies, utterly empty of any clouds, he couldn’t imagine a second storm materializing any time soon.</p>
<p>There didn’t seem to be anyone else out and about yet, as early as it was, and Grian took this to be a bit inconvenient, as he wasn’t sure entirely what he ought to be doing while he waited for Iskall to appear at around lunch-time as he’d promised. There was no Etho to lightly pester, and everyone besides False and Joe was a bit miffed at him for getting Etho’s memories and promising them the same despite not having that authority. False was a bit intense (she’d begun training with wooden weapons as soon as she learned she could craft them) so even if she was awake Grian wasn’t sure he’d be too keen to bother her for something to do. Joe had since left their starter island entirely, taking to the Minecraft system like no one else in their group had, abruptly setting sail with an inventory full of stuff and the proclamation that he’d ‘find the secrets hidden in the corrupted Earth’. Grian had half the mind to do that himself, but he didn’t exactly feel confident enough to survive on his own, nor was he especially comfortable with leaving the only people he was semi-friends with.</p>
<p>So there was no one to talk to. Grian folded his arms and scanned the general area. His cabin was located just a few feet from the point where the underbrush of the heavily forested island became fine yellow sand. The cabin, made of the trees that once stood in its place, was rather plain, but he thought it was really something, considering how little time he’d put into it. Comparing it to the hut that stood next to the bonfire on the beach, well, his cabin was easily twice the size, and looked less like it’d topple over with a light breeze (but of course, gravity was stranger than it used to be, so it hadn’t, and probably wouldn’t). Beef had been hard at work on his house for the entire day yesterday, though, so it topped his hour-long project no question. It was detailed, and looked more like an actual house with a porch that stood on stripped log stilts at its front. It even had furniture beyond just a bed, judging by the tasteful pair of chairs and small table that sat off to the side on the porch. Everything was unpainted, basically colorless except brown and tan, which was fine by Grian, but he did think some contrast would have done them all good.</p>
<p>With nothing better to do, Grian decided to sit by the now long dead bonfire and have a look through the manual for what, he didn’t know or care overmuch, simply glancing at the pages as he thumbed through them. There was that Redstone stuff Etho had mentioned. It didn’t look like Redstone was an actual material so much as a category of logic components that the Minecraft system could support. They were made with copper, though how copper exactly translated to the glowing red torch it could be crafted into was a mystery. Weird alien code, was the best explanation Grian could come up with.</p>
<p>Looking through more of the manual, he spotted the section for dyes, which, when he followed the footnotes, could be used to make paint with additional ingredients. From this, though, Grian concluded this would probably take longer than a morning to make, so set the idea aside for the time being. He’d need to find a chicken first, and some flowers in a color he’d like, and he’d yet to see either.  Grian sighed, and shut the manual, spiriting it away to his inventory.</p>
<p>The door to the hut flipped open just then, a yawning False tip-toeing out and shutting the door quietly behind her, careful not to wake Stress. She spotted him and gave him a sleepy, tentative smile, which Grian returned.</p>
<p>“Up early today?” she said, stretching and moving to re-light the fire.</p>
<p>Grian nodded, “I’m not really sure what to do with myself to be honest. I don’t have any plans ‘til the afternoon.”</p>
<p>She hummed at this and started piling some smaller branches onto the little flame she’d struck to life with a flint and steel. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to be heading out on my own today. Like Joe,” she looked up at him and sat down on one of the logs that ringed the bonfire, “I hope the rest of you will do without me here alright.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Well, yes, I think we will.” Grian said, a bit cautiously.</p>
<p>False rested her chin in one of her hands and smiled lightly. “It’s a big world. I want to see it. I want to see everything. And…” she pulled a sword from her inventory, gleaming in the fiery sunrise, “I want to let off some steam.”</p>
<p>She laughed at Grian’s slightly alarmed look. “It’ll be fine,” she continued, “I just want to beat up some monsters, that’s all. Learned my lesson about attacking actual people.”</p>
<p>“Ah. I wish you luck, then.” Grian said, some tension leaving his shoulders.</p>
<p>She smiled a grateful smile. “Besides, I don’t think I fit so well with this group.”</p>
<p>Grian shook his head rapidly, “No, no, you’re great! We love having you around!”</p>
<p>“Don’t be silly, Grian. I know that most everyone here is a little afraid of me,” she said, glancing back toward the beach hut, “and that’s fine, really. I just… I want to get out on my own, and not have to… worry about scaring people.” she finished, with a single shouldered shrug.</p>
<p>Grian nodded soberly. “Alright.”</p>
<p>False smiled one more time. “See you around, then. I’ve got some last minute things to get together, then-”</p>
<p>“I could help!” Grian interrupted, “I did say I wasn’t busy, yeah?”</p>
<p>False tilted her head and blinked. “Well, I guess it would be quicker. Sure, why not?” She pulled her manual from her inventory and flipped to a particular page.</p>
<p>She pointed at the upgraded version of a boat that would allow for storage and a much better time on rough waves. “I need a lot of wood for this, along with a lot of saplings to make into rope and cloth. If you could pick up about… three stacks of saplings, that would help a lot.”</p>
<p>Grian nodded as she explained and stood up to face the forest. He smiled mischievously. “First to get everything they need wins a diamond?”</p>
<p>“You’re on.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading!<br/>I made a tumblr, so if you wanna ask questions or whatever go <a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">here</a> to check it out</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Interlude 5: Live Report</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Excerpt from the Void-63 Live News Broadcast on the eve of the take-off of “The Hermit - MCSTV3”, a Minecraft System Terraformer Vessel, the Third sent out.</p><p>All video footage from this night was corrupted, post broadcast.</p><p>Audio transcript begins.</p><p>REPORTER: -getting reports that The Hermit is online and technically ready for take-off. It’ll be the first of its kind sent off this year, and also one of the largest ships ever. Curiously, we haven’t officially gotten word as to who will be captaining this vessel, though we are assured that it is no one we know, and no one important — interesting choice of words — and that the captain has at least trained their whole life for this singular purpose. </p><p>Static interrupts briefly.</p><p>REPORTER (CONT’D): Apparently, the recruitment for this surprise Vessel was either done in secret, or has not happened yet, which is decidedly out of the ordinary for a ship of this size, as I have no doubt all who are tuned in will agree. We have heard rumor that some recruits will not actually be assigned to the ship for the duration of its mission, though whether this means they will become citizens of the terraformed projects The Hermit completes, or that the recruits will return to The End, we are unclear on.</p><p>A pause.</p><p>REPORTER (CONT’D):Oh, and we have live here on site, a Void-kind headed onto the ship! They are completely unidentifiable from this distance and with the standard helmet, but judging by the-</p><p>Original broadcast becomes scrambled by an unknown source.</p><p>REPORTER (CONT’D): Are we back? We are? Alright, sorry about that, Void-folks, we had a bit of a mishap at the studio here, but we are back online! The vessel remains where it was but it seems that the launch sequence is already-</p><p>Original broadcast ends.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading! Just an interlude this week, but next week will be a proper chapter!<br/><a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Planning over chat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Docm77&gt; hey etho</p>
<p>Docm77&gt; etho</p>
<p>Docm77&gt; ehto</p>
<p>Docm77&gt; need to talk to you about something</p>
<p>Docm77&gt; are you awake even</p>
<p>Docm77&gt; well, when you do wake up, ping me</p>
<p>Doc sighed and dispelled his communicator screen. He’d have to find something to occupy his time while he waited for Etho to notice his messages. Well, he thought, there’s plenty to do. And there was, as his base was still in the beginning stages. All he had was a small cave that he bore into the only cliff on his island that held all his resources and had a staircase that led to dig limit. He’d found some copper for the redstone already. From there it was a matter of using additional resources to convert the stuff, and then make himself a small starting farm or two.</p>
<p>He’d been just about to start placing down some pistons in front of some reeds when his communicator gave a little ‘beep’ noise.</p>
<p>Doc frowned at the message on screen. It was from Mumbo. Again.</p>
<p>MumboJumbo&gt; doc, could you please teach me how redstone works</p>
<p>It was only another second before more messages started to pop up, and with each one, Doc’s irritation grew.</p>
<p>MumboJumbo&gt; i found copper, and i figured out how to craft redstone stuff with it</p>
<p>MumboJumbo&gt; but I don’t knoe how to use any of this stuff</p>
<p>MumboJumbo&gt; *know</p>
<p>MumboJumbo&gt; are you busy</p>
<p>MumboJumbo&gt; becuase I am very much not</p>
<p>Doc growled to himself and began to type out a message back that contained a high amount of capital letters and an angry emoticon or two. Before he sent it, he let out a breath and shook his head. He knew it wasn’t fair to yell at Mumbo, with him being so new. It was only when doc had calmed down fractionally that he considered what Mumbo was asking him.</p>
<p>It was clear that Mumbo was bored, and that he had been since he’d arrived, more or less. If Doc wanted Mumbo off his back, he’d just have to give him something time-consuming to do. And that was exactly what he was asking for.</p>
<p>Doc erased the message he’d typed out and started a new one.</p>
<p>Docm77&gt; ok</p>
<p>Docm77&gt; we can start with the ship</p>
<p>MumboJumbo&gt; the ship? you mean the ship you all came here on? what does that have to do with redstone</p>
<p>Docm77&gt; i’ll explain when we both get there. just go to the spawn island and we can check it out</p>
<p>MumboJumbo&gt; well alright then, be there in 30 or so</p>
<p>A few minutes later, Doc was pinged again as he was boating his way to spawn island, and was about to be very annoyed until he saw who it was.</p>
<p>Etho&gt; ?</p>
<p>Doc stopped rowing and made to reply right then.</p>
<p>Docm77&gt; we need to plan a whole crew get-together</p>
<p>Etho&gt; oh</p>
<p>Etho&gt; what do you want me to do then?</p>
<p>Docm77&gt; well, just let all your humans know we’ll be meeting in the shopping district tomorrow at, say 6 ish and that they should bring something nice to give to everyone if they want to</p>
<p>Etho&gt; oh okay, i can do that</p>
<p>Docm77&gt; I told X already, and I think he’s working on some things for it</p>
<p>Etho has disconnected.</p>
<p>Doc blinked confusedly at that message for a bit. He’d been in the process of typing out some more details, but if Etho didn’t think he needed to hear them… well that was his problem. Doc shrugged and got back to rowing. After some time, in the distance he could see spawn island, and there lazing on the sand was the mustached man himself. When the black-suited figure noticed him, he hopped up and began to wave at him with both arms.</p>
<p>This was going to be a very annoying afternoon.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading! I know the chapters have been kind of short (-er than usual, I've been busy), but trust me! we'll be getting to some actual plot stuff soon!<br/><a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. In the depths, a portal opens</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Message to Falsesymmetry; Grian; JoeHills; Stressmonster101; VintageBeef</p><p>Etho&gt; Just letting you all know, there’s going to be a crew get together at 6pm at x: 140, z: 650. bring something nice for the rest of the crew if you can!</p><p>“Oh? Who’s pinged you?” Iskall asked in a rather teasing tone, craning his neck to look over at Grian’s communicator screen.</p><p>“It’s just Etho. He says there’s a get-together at six.” Grian shrugged, “We still have plenty of time to find diamonds, right?”</p><p>Iskall shrugged himself, and nodded vaguely. “Probably. I ran some numbers and we have a fair chance at finding some, so long as we stay at about eleven meters from dig limit. Since they’re only sort of rare, they’re our best candidate for shopping district currency on this planet, so I’m glad that that’s what we’re looking for.”</p><p>“Currency? Huh.” Grian said, as he continued along, lighting up the branching and snaking caves they’d been going through for, up to that point, about an hour.</p><p>Iskall walked along behind him, bow with nocked arrow held in leather-gloved hands, ready to fire should any undead appear in the blackness. “You’ve got to use something for money. Of course, just trading would probably work well too.”</p><p>“Hmm. Well, I only need them for some pickaxes so I can check out the Nether.” Grian carefully edged around a sheer drop that led to a pit full of lava, the orange glow and the near comforting distant heat an almost welcoming change to the blank dark and cold stone that surrounded them.</p><p>Iskall scoffed as he followed less carefully. “It’s not just a portal you need, Grian. You’ve got to get breathing masks first. Vapor metals aren’t good for most organic creatures you know.”</p><p>“Vapor metals? Wouldn’t that make the Nether unbelievably hot?”</p><p>“Oh, it is, sure. The Minecraft System takes care of that though. Players won’t melt.”</p><p>“…Thank you for that image, Iskall.” Grian said, suppressing a shudder as he set another torch down.</p><p>“Anyway, get masks. You should be able to make most of the components with iron, so I doubt you’ll need any help.” Iskall spied something in the dark before even Grian did, aiming impeccably. A moment later, Grian heard the whistle of the arrow, a loud crack, and not a thing more.</p><p>Grian stopped only for a moment, looking to Iskall. When he only smiled, Grian shook it off and kept walking. Grian had been nervous about this trip into the depths of the earth, but so far it had been rather uneventful, and Iskall himself was indeed a good person to have around when it came to monsters. Iskall had explained to him that the Minecraft System would create immense cave networks as well as land forms as he’d already seen. This cave, Iskall had said, was pretty typical, though he was unused to seeing lava so abundantly.</p><p>Iskall paused, his heavy footsteps disappearing and Grian turned back, a questioning look on his face. Iskall was holding up his communicator screen, and when Grian caught his eye he smiled.</p><p>“We’re deep enough to find diamonds. If you like, we can dig into the walls and poke around for them.”</p><p>Grian looked at him skeptically. “Won’t we run into lava?”</p><p>“It’s rarer up at this level, I think. We’re more likely to run into the ocean.” Iskall said, pulling his pick (made of diamond, judging by the iridescent clarity of the glass-like material) from his inventory and popping the stone walls apart with it like it was nothing, tunneling in.</p><p>“Alright…” Grian said, still apprehensive. He went ahead and copied Iskall on the other side of the cave wall, keeping his eye out for whatever diamonds looked like.</p><p>About ten minutes later, Grian was yawning, and his pick ran into something that made a ringing sound when he hit it. He came back from the fugue state of mindless digging, and looked to the block in front of him. To him, it looked a lot like some of the other stone types he’d come across, but when he tried to break it like normal, it took much longer than it should have. Iskall had told him to use at least an iron pickaxe to break the diamond ore, otherwise the diamonds would disappear (which, physically, did not make sense, but well, not much did anymore), so he switched his stone pick for the iron one he’d brought for this sole purpose and the rough grey white block popped into one floating rock. When he looked at it in his inventory it was listed as ‘Uncut Diamond’. Grian smiled.</p><p>Now to find a few more.</p><p>“Grian!” Iskall called, voice echoing down the tunnels they’d both been making, “how many so far?”</p><p>“Four!” Grian answered. That first diamond he’d found had turned out to be part of a cluster that resulted in as many. He’d kept digging and had yet to find another.</p><p>“I’ve got ten!” Iskall replied, sounding a bit smug even through the shout.</p><p>Grian rolled his eyes, and as he did, happened upon one more cluster of what he’d come to recognize as diamonds. That made eight more.</p><p>Once he’d picked them all up, he called back to Iskall. “I think I’ve had enough mining for one day, what about you?”</p><p>“Giving up then? Fine by me!” Iskall said back, and Grian snickered.</p><p>They met back up in the cave they’d started from and Grian smiled mischievously as he hefted the twelve diamonds he’d found in his arms.</p><p>Iskall blinked and held out not uncut diamonds, but the ore blocks themselves.</p><p>“Um.” Grian cocked his head.</p><p>Iskall broke out into a massive smile. “These are silk touched. When I use the fortune enchantment on them, I’ll have more than you!” He started laughing.</p><p>“Ah. En…chantment?”</p><p>Iskall sighed a fond sigh as his laughter died and rolled his eyes (or eye, really). “I suppose it’s not a fair competition if only one of you can nearly double your findings.” He conceded. “I thought you said you only had four.”</p><p>“I did when you asked.” Grian said, shrugging, regaining some of his trickster-energy.</p><p>“I see.” Iskall said, putting away his diamond ores, smiling, “that’s why you called it quits, you’d just found more.”</p><p>Grian shrugged noncommittally. “Maybe so. Anyway… how do I make these into proper diamonds?”</p><p>“Simple. Open up your inventory and put them in your crafting window… Yes, just like that, no need for anything complicated. Good! Now you can make diamond tools or armor.”</p><p>Grian set his crafting table down on the cave floor and carefully placed his now clear and lovely diamonds on its surface. With some added sticks, he had newly minted a pair of diamond pickaxes.</p><p>“Now for obsidian, right?” Iskall said.</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>“I found some lava down my tunnel, we can get it from there.” Iskall said, motioning for Grian to follow him.</p><p>After a fair bit of somewhat claustrophobic walking, Iskall stopped (Grian nearly ran into him) and turned. “Under this cobble here is lava.” he said, pointing at a block near his feet. “I’ve got a water bucket, so we can use that and make the obsidian for you to mine. After you get ten, I’ll show you how to make a portal.”</p><p>Grian nodded, and Iskall removed the cobble. Moments later, there was a sizzle, and the lava that had been uncovered was now gone entirely, replaced by a purple-ish black block.</p><p>It reminded him of Void. It made sense to use it for portals.</p><p>Once he’d managed to get all the blocks of obsidian he needed he made his way back to the cave where Iskall was waiting (lounging on a chair he’d apparently brought). Iskall got up and stretched and pointed to one of the walls where he’d hollowed out a portion of it.</p><p>“Fill in the edges here. That will make the smallest possible portal shape.”</p><p>When he did, Iskall brought out a flint and steel and struck the two pieces together, making sparks, and struck them again when the portal didn’t quite catch the first time.</p><p>And then it shrieked to life. A bright purple plane of supercharged Void particles swirled languidly on the surface in patterns that Grian’s mind fell into and in them he could only hear screaming. A breathless wailing that he felt in his bones, and his bones felt like they were melting. His eyes burned and infinity passed before the portal suddenly broke with something like a skyscrapers worth of windows shattering to pieces.</p><p>He blinked.</p><p>“…Grian?” Iskall asked him hesitantly. He was holding an empty bucket, and water flowed from the source block he’d placed in the frame of the portal.</p><p>Grian blinked again. “I’m… fine.” he said, quiet.</p><p>“Are you sure?” Iskall asked.</p><p>He nodded once, and rubbed at his eyes. “The portal… looked familiar.”</p><p>“Familiar? But…”</p><p>“Yeah, I dunno. It just… it felt like it was destroying my soul. It was familiar.” Grian shook his head, at a loss.</p><p>Grian couldn’t see Iskall’s face, torches washed away by the water, but he could hear the concern in his voice. “…Let’s get out of here. Get some fresh air.”</p><p>“Yeah. Good idea.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading! Happy Halloween~!<br/><a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a><br/></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Preparation and Contemplation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The members of Hermitcraft are nothing if not industrious. They’d have to be, to do what they do. Engineers and builders coming together to make something above and beyond the standard most are expected to adhere to. </p><p>All this to say that the shopping district island designated only days ago was already paved with concrete and lined with hand-shaped oak trees, a rounded town square with a comically large palm tree standing just slightly askance in a patch of lilies and tulips in the middle of it all. Iskall had already made a shop — it was this planet’s version of slime, no surprise there — and Ren had of course began his work in cornering the log market, having built a false tree with the goods in chests in its interior. He’d yet to cover the branches in leaves, so it looked rather dead.  </p><p>There were also empty booths that X had taken upon himself to set up for any hermit who may have wished to use them for their first official meet-up on this planet. In the oaks were hanging lanterns that would look lovely and prevent monsters from encroaching during the night, were there any danger of that in this place. X wasn’t sure exactly what everyone intended to bring (indeed, whether many would bring anything at all) but it was best to be over prepared for this type of event.</p><p>It would be hours before the agreed-upon time, though, and X was pretty much finished setting things up. He’d set out his own little gift for everyone, a chest each of seashells (rather useful for a variety of crafting recipes, and also just nice to decorate with) and other ocean ephemera. Nothing that would spoil before night of course, like fish. He wouldn’t smell anything himself, but he’d err on the side of caution when it came to the senses of his crew-members. People like Ren would appreciate not being assaulted with rotten smells. </p><p>Quite a few of the things he’d stuffed into the chests were from the beach of the shopping island itself, but most of it came from dives under the water that X had hazarded after adjusting some settings on his helmet, and enchanted his boots to move easily in rough conditions (e.g. water). The Earth ocean was teeming with life. Close to shores, there were seemingly endless expanses of sand, but when you ventured far enough, deep enough, you’d come across conglomerates of colorful plants and animals. Corals and fish, all vibrant and beautiful in the lazy rays of starlight filtering through the water, swaying and darting around, all completely silent to him behind the helmet. X had seen many planets in his travels with his crew. It’d easily been over a thousand years. But Earth continued to surprise him with hidden beauties and sometimes it was hard to take. He’d never regretted a single day he spent away from home, and seeing things like the coral reef did nothing to dissuade him. X hoped the other hermits would like what he’d found.</p><p>There were fireflies native to the shopping island, X had found out the day he’d leveled the volcano. The star passed the horizon, and the dark that came did not herald monsters at all, but dim, floating lights that swirled and pulsed in the air. When he looked closer at the phenomena, he found a tiny creature, the first insect that had caught his attention on Earth (though not long after he also discovered mosquitoes). He’d seen minuscule animals before, but these were strange in that they reminded him of a larger sort of thing that had been abundant on a planet he’d terraformed not long before he picked up the first member of his current crew. The universe was a strange and wonderful place indeed, and Earth was a particularly fabulous example of the forms life could take. The manual informed him of the basic and common and useful things one may encounter, but that was hardly scratching the surface, as was evident in the reefs, and the insects, and the birds, and all the other things that fled before he could spot them. It was definitely the right decision to hold the get-together in the evening, when the fireflies would light up and add new stars to the sky. It would be a lovely sight.</p><p>For the moment, though, it was noon, and rather hot out. He’d been alone all morning getting things ready, so now he laid on the sand, letting the tide wash over his boots. He couldn’t feel the water, and none of it would get past his suit, but the sound was nice still. The star above him was dimmed automatically by the visor of his helmet, and he took to cloud-watching as he let the time pass by. The masses of water vapor were white and pillow-y looking, morphing from one shape to another as they made their way past, the atmosphere’s currents pulling them this way and that, never quite still, never quite fast enough to seem anything but languid. X sighed.</p><p>He wasn’t sure how long it had been before he was suddenly greeted with the cheery face of Cleo leaning over him, looking amused.</p><p>“Taking a nap are we, X?” She said.</p><p>X smiled, “Might as well have done. But I’ve just been… thinking, I suppose.”</p><p>Cleo stepped away as he sat up and stood, brushing sand off himself. “Everyone’s going to be here, right?” she asked.</p><p>“Yes, assuming they can make it.”</p><p>“It’ll be nice to meet all the humans proper. And I see you’ve been hard at work over here! It’s practically a festival! All it needs is some extra color.” Cleo hummed and nodded to herself.</p><p>“You don’t intend to add to the whole thing, do you?” X folded his arms, frowning lightly, “Have you even planned for it?”</p><p>“Well, technically no, but I’ve been collecting a lot of dyes in preparation for my own base this time around. I’d just have to go back for some fabric, and I could decorate all these tables.”</p><p>“There’s no real need to, Cleo. I think it looks rather nice already.”</p><p>“True, true, but it could look even nicer, don’t you think?”</p><p>“…If you really want to, I won’t stop you. It’s nice to see you excited about something. Rare thing, that.”</p><p>“Ah, you’ve noticed? I do have a lot more energy today.” Cleo looked to X and smiled a wide smile, another rarity on her.</p><p>X smiled back, hoping his confusion didn’t show too prominently on his face. Judging by Cleo’s look, though, he did not succeed.</p><p>She rolled her eyes at him, but sighed wistfully, instead of exasperatedly a moment after. “It’s a strange thing. I’m not sure why, but at least one of the humans isn’t bothered by me at all.” She smiled a fond smile, and X could tell she wasn’t directing that fondness at him. “He’s annoying, and funny, and…” She waves off the whole thing, “Anyhow, you’ll likely meet him.”</p><p>“I’m glad. I do hope that you’ll continue to get along well, for your sake. I never really liked the Zombie nickname overmuch, but a majority of the crew thought it apt.”</p><p>Cleo shrugged. “It’s alright. I was part of the majority there.” She paused, and seemed to lose a sizable amount of her previous cheer. “I’ll still be a zombie most of the time anyway.”</p><p>X nodded cautiously. He’d never been terribly good at comforting people.</p><p>She shook herself from her brief foray back into her typical melancholy. “Anyway, I’ll be off. Only so much time to get my part ready.” She began to walk toward a boat that X had failed to notice in the midst of his thoughts and cloud-watching.</p><p>“Have a safe trip back!” He called after her, for lack of anything else to say. </p><p>She waved back without turning around as she made to push her boat back on the water. X watched her and the boat disappear into the distance.</p><p>X looked to the star that stared down at Earth. It was well past the zenith. Only a few more hours before it would be hidden past the horizon.</p><p>He’d best head to his own base and get some work done in the meantime.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i'm back from taking a break! i'll be posting a new chapter every week and a half (so next one will be wednesday the 23rd, then one on saturday the 2nd, and so on).<br/>thanks for reading as always!<br/><a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Redstone Lines</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Doc was beginning to regret agreeing to teach Mumbo redstone.</p>
<p>“So Doc, the, ah, terminal runs on redstone? I mean, you told me that it did already, but it seems to me that the components I crafted would easily be the size of the panel here. How is it all working on the same stuff?”</p>
<p>Doc was really beginning to regret agreeing to teach Mumbo redstone.</p>
<p>“Could we look at the nether portal reactor again? That was probably the most interesting bit. You can just feel all that energy coming from it. And you said that the Nether is an actual place we could go? How does it all work anyway, taking the energy from there? I saw the mechanism that was hooked up, but how exactly does that count as redstone as well?”</p>
<p>“Mumbo.”</p>
<p>“…Yeah?”</p>
<p>“I dunno. I just learned maintenance. Not how to build stuff like this. The Minecraft System’s redstone is meant for visualization and simple tasks. The ship’s redstone is made up of pre-built computational bits and pieces, on a much smaller scale than one could do with Minecraft.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Okay. Maintenance. If it’s not possible for me to make stuff like this, then why are we up here?”</p>
<p>“Is it not interesting?”</p>
<p>“No, no! It’s very interesting. Just… disappointing that it’s…”</p>
<p>“…I suppose,” Doc paused, and took in the sudden hopeful look on the mustached man’s face. He looked to the side uncomfortably, “well, you could technically make this sort of thing. You’d have to do it yourself, though, without the help of the crafting system. Physically, actually, make the stuff. Only thing is, that sort of project is miles out of your league, and mine too. But, I can help you. Starting with the basics. And maybe you can figure out the more complex things on your own. Like the ship.”</p>
<p>Mumbo’s eyes shone with wonder. He stood there on the main bridge of the ship, mind racing, completely oblivious and in his own head.</p>
<p>The ship was in orbit around Earth and had been since they’d arrived. Spawn had the typical transport zone delineated on the sand, marking the exact spot you’d need to stand in order to get teleported through the Void and onto the ship. The main bridge, where they were then, was a room that was most often occupied by only one or two people at any given time while in transit from project to project. Lately, no one would be around, busy terraforming. Orbit was a low-impact task for the ship, and wouldn’t need much maintenance from him or anyone anyhow. </p>
<p>The main computer terminal was also here, and a forbidden thing to touch, except by X, Zedaph, Impulse, and Tango, who knew how it actually worked.</p>
<p>“Anyway, Mumbo. I think it’d be easier to show you the basics back on Earth.”</p>
<p>“Oh! Yes. Right. Back we go then!”</p>
<p>Doc led the way back to the room they’d entered from (careful not to lose Mumbo on the way, as Etho had a tendency for) and they were back on Earth in less than a blink.</p>
<p>“I’ve a lot of redstone on my island. Why don’t we head there?” Doc said.</p>
<p>Mumbo nodded eagerly, looking delighted at the prospect.</p>
<p>Doc felt… less regretful that he’d agreed to teach Mumbo redstone.</p>
<p>One would think, with the rather high barrier to entry on redstone (and especially the computational side of things) that The Hermit’s crew would be a bit more biased towards artists. Given the random nature of the sentient creature selection process, though, it wasn’t inconceivable to randomly pick up more people with the inclination for the logical side of things, and not the creative side. </p>
<p>Mumbo was very clearly not interested in aesthetics to the degree Scar was. And Doc was not as interested in the more complex coding side of redstone as someone like Tango. Doc supposed he’d likely have to bring Tango in, once he’d taught Mumbo everything he could, and maybe Etho after that (who was probably the most well versed in redstone of all of them, maybe even more than X, despite how short a time he’d been a part of the crew).</p>
<p>Not to say Doc was at all uninformed on the vast majority of redstone logic. He was the best with the in-system redstone, with its meter square repeaters and comparators as so on. Doc would go as far as to say (and he did say, to Mumbo) he was the best with thinking outside the box, so to speak, and make complex machines that many would give up on and turn to other solutions for far before he would. Of course, he couldn’t credit himself entirely for this.</p>
<p>On very rare occasions, two crews of terraformers might meet and communicate. It was on one of these occasions that Doc met the almost entirely redstone focused crew, aptly named ‘Scicraft’. X had requested a visit from them, finding their crew as it stood at the time a bit behind on redstone knowledge. A lot of their members had learned from them as they all worked to terraform a planet no one was from, given the nether-like properties it had, covered in lava, foggy, and devoid of any sentient life. Doc really looked up to Scicraft, and based a lot of his own work with redstone on the methods they pioneered, as most terraformer crews likely did as well.</p>
<p>And Mumbo, of course, got as thorough a rundown as Doc could provide within the few hours or so before night came. By the time Doc ushered Mumbo off his island, the star was already halfway past the horizon, and even then, as Mumbo boarded his boat, he was peppering him with further questions and asking for explanations which Doc waved off (eager to be rid of him finally) and encouraged him to try and figure things out for himself.</p>
<p>With one last “Try not to die on your way back!” Doc retreated from the beach and settled down to look at the stars, unobscured as they were without the storm that had blown through the previous night. He’d had a rather more exhausting day than he’d expected to, and hadn’t gotten much done to boot. But even as he bitterly started making mental lists of all the things he hadn’t done yet that he had to get to, he couldn’t help but mellow out as he stared up at the starscape, as he had taken to doing every night he could.</p>
<p>Every hermit is provided with knowledge of local measurements (time, distance, etc.) and some languages to sort of smooth things over with what would usually be their one new member, who would still operate on their original base assumptions about their world and act as a barometer for the typical fashion of operation on their planet. The inklings they’d been left with of their previous existence would have a sensical foundation still, to make use of in their new lives as terraformers. And the rest of the crew would take note.</p>
<p>Here on Earth, it was known that humans once measured the distance between stars as light-years. The number of years it would take light to travel from one place to another. It was a sort of sad thing to measure the universe with. There were places out in space where no light had ever touched, where if you were to float there, in the void between galaxies, you’d see no stars at all. Humans could see such a narrow range in light waves. It made sense to measure things that way, knowing this. However, Doc knew, in all his time traveling the universe, that there were faster things than light. Ways to bend spacetime. And of course, the shadow world that was the Nether, which condensed distances to exponential degrees the further you got from concentrations of matter. </p>
<p>Doc looked up at the stars and wondered at the light-years between them. He looked up and forgot for a moment that he’d reached many of them before. He looked up and forgot that many were already taken. He looked up and forgot he was even there at all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm posting the chapter a little early as a gift! Thanks for reading!<br/><a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0024"><h2>24. Interlude 6: Changelog</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An excerpt of the Hermit’s changelog, 5 days post Earth landfall. Normally used to make notes for other users of the ship computer.</p>
<p>Z&gt; so, would anyone like to play some golf?</p>
<p>T&gt; yes, if you test my minigame thing</p>
<p>Z&gt; of course!</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Z&gt; are you going to ask what golf is</p>
<p>I&gt; it’s an earth game right</p>
<p>Z&gt; oh, impulse! yes it is, gold star for you only</p>
<p>T&gt; hey, i knew that too!</p>
<p>Z&gt; sure you did. anyway, meet me at 700, -800 ish and i’ll show you both around the course</p>
<p>I&gt; I mean, I never agreed to go golfing, but I will see you there!</p>
<p>T&gt; seriously, i could even tell you the basic rules of golf, i totally deserve a gold star too</p>
<p>Z&gt; do it then</p>
<p>T&gt; well, you hit a small ball into a small hole with a stick thing from really far away</p>
<p>T&gt; and the winner does it in as few hits as they can</p>
<p>Z&gt; honestly, i didn’t believe you when you said you knew the rules</p>
<p>T&gt; i know about most of the games they played on earth. y’know, since one of the main things i do is make minigames?</p>
<p>I&gt; nerd</p>
<p>T&gt; &gt;:(</p>
<p>Z&gt; no, he’s right tango</p>
<p>T&gt; &gt;&gt;&gt;:(</p>
<p>Z&gt; you’re meeting me there, right? say, tomorrow at noon?</p>
<p>T&gt; that works for me</p>
<p>I&gt; I might be a little late</p>
<p>Z&gt; an hour past then?</p>
<p>I&gt; sure</p>
<p>T&gt; yeah, that’d be fine too</p>
<p>Z&gt; :D</p>
<p>X&gt; the ship’s changelog isn’t for chatting, you know</p>
<p>Z&gt; sorry X, we’ll get back to it</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>just an interlude this time! i had some fairly busy holidays, so not much time to write.<br/>thanks for reading! next chapter (and it will be an actual chapter) goes up on wednesday the 13th.<br/><a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0025"><h2>25. Get There Early, It'll Be Less Crowded</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Etho had always been the type of person to challenge himself, to come up with unique solutions from his own mind and no one else’s. Of course, the exception to that was talking to many people at once. It was something that just left him adrift in a proverbial sea of worry, not knowing when to chime in most of the time, always half-sure that when he would the conversation would grind to a halt and everyone would just look at him like he’d-</p>
<p>He was rowing toward the shopping district. The sun was setting again, and it would only be an hour or so until nightfall. He could see the island in the distance, a little harder to spot now without the mountain that had comprised the majority of it. </p>
<p>Etho sighed, and it did nothing to ease the tension that was continuing to build in the face of most likely seeing X and thus getting a talking to.</p>
<p>Etho wasn’t sure why, but X had always been a bit strict with him, though at times it was almost like that part was forgotten and they talked like old friends. It was stressful.</p>
<p>He’d been somewhat lost in thought when his boat ground to a sudden halt, as it stuck in the sand of the beach. Predictably, this caused Etho to lose all balance and fall to the floor of the boat with a rather embarrassing thud.</p>
<p>Well, he’d arrived.</p>
<p>He got up and looked towards the shopping district proper. There were lanterns all around, and a bunch of stalls with colorful banners stuck to them without rhyme or reason, creating overall a very haphazard festival sort of vibe. There were a few people near some stalls, setting up, and a few others milling around near some tables that had been covered with plates presumably full of local foods prepared by the hermits. One of those hermits was looking toward him with a congenial smile, as usual.</p>
<p>Etho gave Iskall a wave, and then turned to heft his own box of stuff to give the other hermits. It wasn’t much, but it was early game, so to speak.</p>
<p>He felt the eyes of some of the other hermits following him as he went to set his box on a free stall. Inside was a quarter stack of redstone blocks for each hermit who wanted it. Nothing too special. It was a lot, sure, but he could get it all back with a good, long mining session.</p>
<p>From there, after checking the box’s contents once more, Etho wasn’t sure where exactly to put himself. Was he meant to stand near his stall? Or go socialize with the hermits by all the food? It was the sort of situation that always left him internally reeling.</p>
<p>He settled on people-watching for now, casting his gaze over the early arrivals. There was Iskall, talking with Ren at the table, with Grian sitting nearby, looking slightly out of it even as he chatted like it was nothing. Stress was also there, checking over the food and hitting it off with the whole group there, which was nice to see. Over by the stalls Etho could see Cleo and Joe. Cleo was putting up more banners as Joe sat on one of the stall tabletops, appearing to wax poetic about who knows what, judging by the theatrical gesturing. Cleo’s shoulders were shaking a bit as she worked, apparently holding back laughter. Doc was sat behind his own stall, arms folded as though waiting for someone to come by and ask about whatever he was offering the rest of the hermits. Scar and Mumbo stood behind him, and they were all chatting quietly amongst themselves. </p>
<p>As yet, no one besides them had arrived, as far as he could see. Etho wondered if Zedaph, Impulse, and Tango would be getting off their work in the ship’s computer early today. Usually, they’d plug in most of the night as they monitored the encoded planet for bugs. Etho had always suspected that they got done with that part pretty quickly though and would move on to messing around.</p>
<p>“Etho!” someone called from not far behind him. He jumped and turned to look.</p>
<p>It was Bdubs, looking simultaneously like he was about to challenge him to some sort of competition, and wary at how dark it had been getting. He was smiling a wild sort of smile.</p>
<p>“Hey there, Bdubs.” Etho shot back, in a teasing voice that only just covered up his own nervousness.</p>
<p>Bdubs rolled his eyes and huffed. “Don’t act like you didn’t just jump a mile high.”</p>
<p>“As if it’s hard to scare me. Not much of an accomplishment, I’m sure you know.” Etho hummed, nodding in mock smugness.</p>
<p>Bdubs scoffed. “You don’t have to sound so proud.”</p>
<p>“At least I’m not scared of the dark.”</p>
<p>“Oh, come on! You’re basically made of the dark, aren’tcha? Of course you wouldn’t know what it’s actually like for me to literally not see anything but shadows when there ain’t no light.”</p>
<p>“Alright, fair point.” Etho conceded, even as he disappeared into a shapeless Void.</p>
<p>“Ah!” Bdubs yelled, indignant, “Etho, you rat! I know you just shapeshifted or whatever it is you do! You can’t fool me!”</p>
<p>“Sure, sure,” Etho said in a whisper, from behind him, right next to his ear.</p>
<p>Bdubs squeaked, and turned to find him, glaring.</p>
<p>Etho couldn’t help but chuckle as he transformed into Bdubs himself, making a mirror image. He tapped him on his shoulder.</p>
<p>Bdubs turned again, and Etho wiggled his fingers jauntily.</p>
<p>Next time Bdubs blinked, Etho was back to normal.</p>
<p>“You sneak! How come you gotta mess with me all the time, huh?”</p>
<p>Etho shrugged, “Your reactions are fun.” he said honestly.</p>
<p>Bdubs’ scowl lightened into something more resembling annoyance. “Well, now I’m just gonna ban you from gettin’ my gift for the meet-and-greet.”</p>
<p>Etho gasped a mocking gasp.</p>
<p>“It’s a great and fantastic gift, and you’ll be sorry you messed with me!”</p>
<p>“Oh?”</p>
<p>“Yes! I got everyone except you a very valuable and very fine set of decorative blocks.” He nodded his head in a very obvious ‘so there’ manner.</p>
<p>“Ah, you wound me, Bdubs. How will I ever survive?”</p>
<p>“You shall survive, I’m sure, you’ll just be sufferin’!”</p>
<p>“So cruel for just a simple little joke…” Etho intoned in a quiet voice, tinged with sarcasm.</p>
<p>Bdubs rolled his eyes again. “And to think I came over here to offer you a spot sit with Doc and his humans and me.” He folded his arms and huffed.</p>
<p>“Am I barred from that now then?”</p>
<p>Bdubs hummed, considering, and drawled. “Well, no, I suppose not.”</p>
<p>“Oh, how forgiving of you.”</p>
<p>“Don’t push it! Just come and sit and stop standing around all awkward-like!”</p>
<p>Etho laughed. “Okay.”</p>
<p>Maybe this meet-and-greet would go alright.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading! Next chapter goes up Saturday 23rd.<br/><a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0026"><h2>26. Stealth is of the essence</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Grian was… kind of exhausted. But Iskall had stuck around after they got back up to the surface, and seemed to have been keeping an eye on him. In fact, Iskall hadn’t actually left him alone for longer than a minute since he’d… well, Grian supposed it meant that Iskall cared. Though he’d have liked some time to himself before the get-together thing at least.</p><p>By this point in the evening, everyone had arrived. Grian sat at one of the tables poking idly at a plate of food prepared by humans and aliens alike, which made for a rather interesting (and by interesting he means just plain odd) mix of flavors. The human food was generally plain but, well, edible. Apparently every human knew the general idea as to what food was meant to be like, and only lacked seasoning, perhaps out of unavailability. The alien prepared food on the other hand… it was clear that it was a throw-everything-into-the-pot sort of situation with those dishes. Zombie Cleo had made… a mush. That Grian politely declined. Hypno, another (superficially) human-looking alien, had made a mishmash of plants and unidentifiable fish in a dish that reminded Grian of the stereotypical mystery meat in school lunches. He did at least try it though, and it wasn’t bad. The most interesting (odd) dish from an alien was easily the thing Jevin had made. It was a well-prepared, savory pseudo-gravy soup. Nothing was made to accompany it however, apparently relying on other foods to make up for that. Grian would say it made for a good gravy, if only it was not also full of fairly fresh greenery, and bits and pieces of… something. </p><p>Of course, a few of the other aliens had prepared foods in as simple a manner as the humans who brought food did. It seemed that sort of low-effort food prep was most common in general, and that the extra-prepared foods were more of a special occasion attempt.</p><p>Grian could remember some foods from Etho’s memories, not that Etho had ever tried any of it. Grian recalled the tastes himself, though. He knew what ramen tasted like. Fish and chips. English breakfast. Grian wondered if he’d be able to eat any of it again. If he made it himself, he supposed. But then, how much remembering things he shouldn’t was too much? He couldn’t claim to be a talented enough chef to re-invent something as complex as ramen. He sighed quietly to himself.</p><p>Grian got up to have a look at the stands that had been set up. He’d been done eating for a while, just pretending to listen as Iskall, Ren, and Stress talked. The first stand he checked was Etho’s, who, upon seeing him there, glancing around, had rushed over (in fact, he seemed to teleport, if only he hadn’t noticed the cloud of Void whizzing through the air) and explained, rather out of breath somehow, that he was entitled to one quarter stack of redstone blocks.</p><p>“Ah, that magic stuff.” Grian said, to annoy him.</p><p>“…I wouldn’t call it magic per se, it’s more like-”</p><p>Grian snorted, “I know, it’s all very complex logic stuff. I’ll take it, but no guarantees I’ll really use much of it.”</p><p>“That’s fine, I don’t expect builders to do redstone so much.”</p><p>“So, while I’ve got you here, can I ask you something?” Grian said, in a lower whisper that would be hard to hear over the chatter of the other hermits.</p><p>“Depends on the question.” Etho shoots him a sharp look, warning him. Grian could take the hint.</p><p>“...Well, I’d like to... talk to some of the humans on Doc’s team! I haven’t had the chance to yet.” Grian could ask his real question later, he supposed.</p><p>“Oh, well, sure. You don’t need my permission.” Etho started off toward Doc, Mumbo, and Scar, motioning for Grian to follow.</p><p>“What, with you and all them standing around like you’re planning something? I wasn’t about to just barge in on that.” He pointed out.</p><p>Etho scratched at the back of his head, fiddling a bit with the knot of his forehead protector (such a nerd). “I guess we have been sticking close to each other all night, huh? ...I won’t deny that we're planning something, though.” He said, with a mischievous glint to his eye, and a prankster’s smile that Grian recognized even through the mask.</p><p>Now Grian was very curious what they were up to.</p><p>“Etho!” Shouted Bdubs, the alien with the red headband with quite long loose ends at the knot. He was quite human-looking at first glance, but if you looked closer, something about him was decidedly inhuman, though Grian couldn't put his finger on it. Upon noticing Grian, he glared, but with a good-natured tilt. “So you’re bringin’ even more in on this, huh?”</p><p>“Hey come on, Grian is very trustworthy!” Etho defended, before stopping and appearing to reconsider this, which, ouch.</p><p>“I am plenty trustworthy. I can keep any secret, so long as I know I ought to.” Grian said, pointedly.</p><p>Etho flinched a bit. “Well I can’t argue that.” He said.</p><p>Bdubs nodded approvingly. “Alright. You’re in. We need all the people we can get for this little… escapade.” he said, with a pleasantly evil smile.</p><p>Mumbo chimed in speaking only marginally quieter than usual, “So, which of us knows how to put together an auto-dispenser, and which of us knows how to craft good-looking fireworks?”</p><p>“I know redstone, and so does Etho. We can take care of the dispensers.” Doc offered.</p><p>“I’m great with color combinations!” Scar added.</p><p>“So… we’re putting together a surprise fireworks show then?” Grian asked.</p><p>Bdubs smiled widely in confirmation. “Not just that though… we’re also going to blow up the stands as a finale. Since we won't need 'em after tonight, ya know.”</p><p>Grian blinked confusedly. “Isn’t that… dangerous?” he’d have at least expected Etho to be against this, as timid as he seemed most of the time. When Grian looked to him questioningly though, Etho looked like he was only barely containing his excitement.</p><p>Etho, noticing Grian looking, coughed, and explained. “Anyone too close to the stands might die, sure, but that’s part of the fun of explosions, I think. They’ll respawn, and it only hurts a bit to be blown up. And we'll move all the items from the stands too, so nobody's gifts get destroyed.” With this, Grian concluded that Etho was definitely a bit of a pyromanic. His eyes were sparkling with thoughts of explosives.</p><p>“…Oh! Huh. Well, I have no further objections.” Grian said, keeping his further objections to himself in favor of seeing how this all would go.</p><p>“Alright! Now, we’ve got to be extra sneaky about it all. Grian, you could distract people from getting too close to one of the redstoners while they set up the TNT and auto-dispensers. I’ll be doin’ that too. So that leaves… Mumbo. What do you plan on doin’?”</p><p>Mumbo looked a bit put on the spot, but recovered quickly. “Well, obviously I’ll help with the redstone. Obviously.” He sounded a bit indignant.</p><p>Bdubs just nodded approvingly. “And Doc got together all the gunpowder we need. So… it’s now or never! Let’s get to it!” He said, clapping his hands together descisively. </p><p>Without thinking much about it, Grian decided to guard Mumbo as he worked on a redstone line that ran under the stands. It only took a few minutes, and Grian blocked Mumbo from being seen coming up from underground. Their part already done, Grian decided he might as well talk to Mumbo, who was standing rather awkwardly, trying to look casual as he leaned on a stand, also quite obviously a bit wary of the fact that there was primed TNT under it.</p><p>“So Mumbo. What have you been up to? You’ve been learning redstone then?”</p><p>“Oh! Um, yes. Doc has been showing me the ropes. It’s been quite nice.”</p><p>“That’s good to hear. Redstone sounds very complicated, so it’s quite cool that you’re just going for it, you know?”</p><p>“I suppose. I mean, it just felt like my only real potential skill to be honest. I’m pants at anything aesthetic. And honestly, it’s not so complex once you get into it. The really tough stuff, that’s all the sort of thing on the ship.”</p><p>“The ship? You’ve been on it?”</p><p>“I have, yes. It’s an incredible machine. I don’t know that I’ll ever make something half as complex.”</p><p>“Huh. Well now I’m a bit curious. Most of us haven’t seen any of the ship really. What’s it like?” Grian asked, trying to sound casual and not like he was fishing for potentially useful information regarding sabotage.</p><p>Mumbo’s eyes lit up a bit, just thinking about it. “There’s this reactor thing that runs off of the energy from the Nether, for one. And of course there’s the ship computer. And the teleporter that brings you up to the ship is very cool as well-”</p><p>“Computer? Did you get much of a look at that? Has it got an AI or something?” Grian asked, hoping the computer was insecure and not constantly manned by anyone.</p><p>“AI? No, I don’t think so. It’s nothing so fancy. Why do you ask?”</p><p>“Just curious. Do you think I’d be able to see the ship? It sounds very interesting.”</p><p>“I don’t see why not. I could probably take you up there and show you some of the stuff Doc showed me.”</p><p>“That’d be excellent.” Grian said, only barely not sounding like a person about to do some serious recon, and perhaps mild destruction, should the situation call for it.</p><p>“You’re going up to see the ship?” Asked Iskall, from behind him.</p><p>Grian couldn’t help but jump. “Ah! Yes! I mean, just to look around, you know. Iskall.” He hoped he didn’t sound suspicious. By Iskall’s look though, he could tell that not only did he see through that lie, but that he’d also heard and understood the true goal of every question Grian had asked.</p><p>“Well, I’m sure you won’t break anything.” Iskall said, sounding surprisingly sincere, despite what he was implicating. “I would love to go up with you and show you some things in a bit more detail.”</p><p>Grian got his true meaning. Iskall was perfectly fine with him messing with something as important as the ship. He was even willing to assist. Unexpected of a long time crew member (well, longer than he at least), but a welcome ally in this. Grian smiled.</p><p>“The more the better!” Mumbo said, oblivious.</p><p>Just then, Etho waved at them, and gave a thumbs up, signaling readiness.</p><p>“Looks like the show is about to start.” Grian said, smiling wide and mischievous at Iskall’s now slightly concerned look.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading! Next chapter goes up on the 3rd of February.<br/>Also, this fic's <a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>! I reblogged some fanart made by orangecupcake347! Thanks again to them for drawing it!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0027"><h2>27. Just a quick look</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>X never made it a habit to look into the thoughts of his crew mates. Sure, it was a breach of privacy and such and such moral concerns, but what really deterred him was the state most of their thoughts would be in. No one in the universe thinks in completely logical and straight lines — save for AIs, and you didn’t need to be able to turn your mind into Void to read those — and his crew was no different. In times such as these though, it’s only ever a pleasure to hear the thoughts of his friends, knowing that they were alright, that they were having a good time talking with each other.</p>
<p>Ren was one of the harder ones to listen in on, his thoughts firing in rapid and nonsensical directions, though his emotions would always be a through-line that tied things together. Ren was quite happy talking with Iskall, False, and Stress. They seemed to be talking PvE and PvP.</p>
<p>Beef was showing off a diamond pick he’d received from Grian as part of a separate agreement, though he did not say he wasn’t the one to get the diamonds until the end of the story he’d made up about it. He delighted in the reactions of Hypno and TFC to this little revelation.</p>
<p>Joe was cracking jokes to a small audience of Cleo and Cub, who seemed to be attempting to test a hypothesis about Cleo’s energy thievery. They were being continuously interrupted by Joe, and only getting more and more off-track, though any resulting irritation was coming from a fond place.</p>
<p>Jevin was explaining the meal he’d prepared to a fascinated Zedaph, Impulse, and Tango. Their thoughts on this existed on a common wavelength of ‘confused’.</p>
<p>Then there was the scheming that had been going on with Doc, Bdubs, Etho, Scar, Mumbo, and Grian. Once X had figured out what it was they planned to do, he’d let out an amused huff. It seemed they all made for quite the collective of skilled pranksters. X had found the time to casually collect the mostly empty gift boxes left on all the stands and set them aside.</p>
<p>Just as he’d been about to listen in on a conversation between Mumbo and Grian, he found, upon attempting to look in on Grian’s side of things, that he couldn’t. He tried for quite some time to suss out why, poking at the edges of Grian’s mind, unable to see past a wall that shut him out entirely. He was only brought out of his efforts by a confluence of explosions, which, though he’d known they were coming, had made him jump anyway.</p>
<p>He opened his eyes. He was sat on a bench, colorful sparkling fireworks filling the sky above. Through the flashes, through the bangs, he found his gaze had been trained on Grian. And Grian stared right back. A look so haunted. And from this X knew Grian had known what he’d been trying to do.</p>
<p>Grian stood, frozen, a look of growing horror. Someone shouted for him to move. X knew what would happen if he didn’t snap out of it. He realized too late.</p>
<p>All their communicators were pinged.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>sorry the chapter's so short today! lots of busyness and stress on my end for the past little while, but! things'll be settling down sometime next month after i move, so i'll have more time thereafter!<br/>Anyway, thanks for reading! i'll do my best to get a longer chapter done and posted by 13th Saturday.<br/><a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0028"><h2>28. Respawn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Death is easy. Death is simple. Your consciousness is transferred to an identical body. You and your thoughts continue.</p>
<p>That is the nature of what occurs when you are terminated while under the influence of one of the Void-folk’s systems. Some wonder whether it’s really the same being who wakes up after a death.</p>
<p>All life is transient and ever-changing, however. You are not the same being you were yesterday.</p>
<p>So really, isn’t it a moot point? The answer is always yes. But you must continue on anyway- you must continue on any- continue- continue- continue?</p>
<p>[RESPAWN]</p>
<p>Grian gasped and coughed roughly, trembling all over. He fell to his knees and the sand of spawn island shifted under his sudden weight. He brought his watery eyes up toward the sky, dim starlight piercing into his skull. Shaking still, he wrapped his arms around himself. Assuring himself that he was there at all. He shook his head, and dropped his gaze to his knees. He watched droplets fall to his jeans.</p>
<p>It didn’t make sense, he didn’t understand. He’d died. He’d felt it. An ultimate loss of control. And then there was that… broadcast? And he was back.</p>
<p>Of course, logically, he knew that respawning was something that was possible as he now existed. It was a whole different beast to experience it. Still, somehow, it didn’t seem right. </p>
<p>Grian put aside this thought at a breath of teleportation, an influx of Void just behind him. Someone’s feet alighted on the sand, and Grian froze.</p>
<p>X (it could only be X) took a step towards him.</p>
<p>He spoke first. “Is this it for me then?”</p>
<p>No reply.</p>
<p>“Or are you going to make me suffer? Make me wait for you to get rid of me? I know you must want to.”</p>
<p>The sand behind him shifts, but it isn’t a step closer. X remains silent.</p>
<p>“…It was only me. No one else ought to be blamed for what I did. So, if you must get rid of me, then well… don’t let me drag anyone else with me.”</p>
<p>X sighed.</p>
<p>Grian finally looked back to find X sat cross-legged in the sand. Grian sniffed, and glared weakly at him.</p>
<p>X met his gaze and winced. “I… I’m sorry I distracted you like that. But I’m not- I was never going to- I-” X paused, weighing his words. “Pranks are meant to be all in good fun, Grian.” He said, with a small assuring smile.</p>
<p>Grian blinked. Had he not seen…?</p>
<p>X continued. “See, I like to look in on the crew, when they’re happy. I suppose I should have just respected that you obviously didn’t want anyone in your head.”</p>
<p>So he hadn’t.</p>
<p>“I’m not mad at all. I’m not going to… I just came here to apologize for getting you killed.”</p>
<p>Grian took a moment to process this. All of the fear that had him so tense, so prepared for actual death this time, left him in an instant. He could almost laugh.</p>
<p>He did, a short chuckle. “Oh,” he said, with an undercurrent of the sort of mirth that only surfaced after a close call. He smiled a small shaky smile, adrenaline still making his heart race. “Didn’t expect that.” He said. His knuckles were white as he gripped his sweater sleeves. He turned away, and scrubbed away the remnants of the tears that had tracked down his face.</p>
<p>“…What has Etho told you about me?” X asked after a few moments, seeming to wonder to himself, as though he couldn’t imagine a negative thing about him coming from Etho.</p>
<p>Grian looked back at X, almost rolling his eyes. “Like you don’t know how scared everyone is of you? You’re a whim away from taking us apart!”</p>
<p>X seemed taken aback at this. He shook his head slowly, trying to refute this. “I wouldn’t-”</p>
<p>“You have! Everyone else! All humans! Every single being to ever exist on any planet you’ve been to! Except a tiny handful. And you expect us to be your friends?”</p>
<p>X scrambled to his feet. “I’ve got to-” He pulled up his communicator screen, hand shaky. He started to type.</p>
<p>“Are you just going to erase me then?” Grian got to his feet, rising to his full height, nearly a foot less than X. “Are you just going to make me disappear?” He said, building to a near shout.</p>
<p>X dismissed his communicator, and backed away from Grian, shaking his head, more and more.</p>
<p>Grian didn’t let him get any further. He looked right into his eyes, glaring, challenging. “You doomed us all a long time ago.”</p>
<p>And behind X’s eyes, something shattered. He teleported away.</p>
<p>Grian huffed and sat back down on the sand. He rubbed at his eyes again.</p>
<p>If his fate hadn’t been sealed before X had come to apologize, it surely was now, he thought, grimly.</p>
<p>Grian looked to the stars. Etho couldn’t name them, so he couldn’t either. </p>
<p>And maybe no human ever would.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>:)<br/>Next chapter goes up on the 24th!<br/><a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0029"><h2>29. Advice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Xisuma&gt; doc, can i ask you something?</p>
<p>DocM77&gt; yea?</p>
<p>Xisuma&gt; is the whole crew afraid of me?</p>
<p>Doc stopped and looked at the message from X for a long time. The get-together party had wound down about an hour or so ago, ending with a quite literal bang. None of them had gotten word as to how Grian was doing after dying for the first time. X was meant to come back with Grian, and then they’d all say their goodnights and go their separate ways. But as time went on, it became clear that neither of them would be returning to the shopping district, so each of the Hermits slowly packed up and left one by one. He’d gone home just after Ren left. Doc, like many of the other Hermits, he guessed, would be up later than usual, hoping for some indication that all was well.</p>
<p>Xisuma&gt; doc?</p>
<p>Doc grimaced some, trying to articulate his answer in as kind a way as possible.</p>
<p>DocM77&gt; yes, they are</p>
<p>But Doc was no master of communication.</p>
<p>Maybe a minute after he sent his message, X teleported in just a few feet away, and Doc couldn’t help but jump a bit.</p>
<p>X sat at one of the other four chairs he’d set up around his dining table, across from Doc. He slumped in his seat, but his expression was tense. He shifted his gaze to Doc, a thoroughly disquieted look in his eyes.</p>
<p>“Do you want advice?” Doc asked tentatively.</p>
<p>“… Are you sure they…?” X started.</p>
<p>“Yes, I’m sure. I used to be. You have to understand, X, and surely you’ve thought about it some in the past thousands of years out here, that you have power over us? A lot of power over us?”</p>
<p>“Well of course, but I’d never use that power unless I absolutely had to. I… I’m not in the business of hurting anyone. Not really.” X sounded like he was trying to convince himself of this more than anyone.</p>
<p>Doc shrugged this off. “But they don’t know that like I do. I’ve known you for as long as I can remember. I know that you’re a good person, X.”</p>
<p>X seemed to shrink in on himself. “Right.”</p>
<p>“I mean, you have a great track record of not hurting any of us, for one thing.”</p>
<p>X said nothing. He looked frozen in place. He’d even stopped breathing.</p>
<p>“X?”</p>
<p>“…I- yeah. I’ve never…” He stopped.</p>
<p>“If you’re thinking of everyone who isn’t a Hermit, well, it’s not on you. The Void-folk make you do that, right?”</p>
<p>X gave a stilted nod and said nothing for a long time. Doc could see some emotion behind X’s eyes that he’d never seen there before. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.</p>
<p>He finally spoke, in a horrified whisper, “How do I fix this?”</p>
<p>Doc got the feeling X was referring to something else entirely, though what, he wasn’t sure.</p>
<p>X shook his head as if to banish something from his mind. “I think… I ought to leave for a week. Let things cool down.”</p>
<p>Doc cocked his head. “Isn’t that part of protocol with rebellious crewmates? What happened with Grian, exactly? He is alright, right?”</p>
<p>“Grian is, well, he’s…” another long pause. “He told me Etho was afraid.”</p>
<p>Doc scoffed lightly. “Etho’s a little afraid of everyone, right? Just how he is.”</p>
<p>X shook his head some. He looked lost.</p>
<p>Doc was starting to get a bit frustrated, patience with him wearing thin as X clearly debated with himself whether to say something or not.</p>
<p>Doc slammed a hand down onto the table, and X jumped. “What happened, X?” Doc growled.</p>
<p>Reflexively, X brought up his communication screen as if to type a command, but dismissed it soon after, relaxing a bit.</p>
<p>“Well?” Doc pressed.</p>
<p>“I… I have to go.” X said, getting up from his chair.</p>
<p>And he teleported away without another word.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>somehow managed to play over 80 hours of stardew valley the past week haha. still had time to write a short chapter of course. next one will go up on 6th March!<br/>thanks for reading!<br/><a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0030"><h2>30. Interlude 7: Ship Computer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A recently deleted log of correspondence between an Op and the Hermitcraft ship computer.</p>
<p>To SC&gt; /locate End_Island<br/>SC&gt;…Processing<br/>…<br/>……<br/>SC&gt; Nearest Co-Ordinates x:98^6.2; y:707^1.34589; z:-4784290.8796<br/>To SC&gt; /set course<br/>SC&gt; Adjusting position…<br/>SC&gt; Calculating for obstacular interferences…<br/>SC&gt; Arrival in 45 Earth minutes and 32 Earth seconds and 87 Earth milliseconds and 1.4389207890989093468111517295491e+46 Earth plancks<br/>To SC&gt; /disable measurement earth:planck<br/>SC&gt; Disabled<br/>To SC&gt; /execute launch<br/>SC&gt; Launching…<br/>SC&gt; Launch disabled by Op<br/>To SC&gt; /?<br/>SC&gt; Launch disabled by Op<br/>To SC&gt; /list Earth_Mission Op<br/>SC&gt; Xisuma Void; Unspecified Copy of Fourth; Tango Tek<br/>To SC&gt; /deop unspecified_copy_of_fourth<br/>SC&gt; …<br/>……<br/>SC&gt; Denied: Low Permission<br/>SC&gt; Cancelling Pre-Launch<br/>SC&gt; Re-adjusting for Orbit<br/>To SC&gt; /execute launch<br/>SC&gt; Denied: Known Incorrect Command Path<br/>To SC&gt; /?<br/>SC&gt; Earth Mission has been Upgraded to ‘Paramount’ Status<br/>SC&gt; Local Op Lack Permission to Abort<br/>To SC&gt; /listd unspecified_copy_of_fourth<br/>SC&gt;…<br/>SC&gt; Name: Unspecified; Species: Void-Kind, VKO: Fourth; Co-ords: Not Found; Status: Op, Mode: Survival; E: 2/20; N: 20/20; HP: 20/20; S: 25/20; C: 106/20; SWT: 21/20;<br/>To SC&gt; /exit<br/>SC&gt; Exiting…<br/>……<br/>Have a Good Day :smile:</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>proper chapter on 17th Wednesday!<br/>thanks for reading!<br/><a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0031"><h2>31. Late-night visit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You’re sure he’s here, Iskall?” Etho asked in a whisper.</p>
<p>“Yep. Might be sleeping by now, though.”</p>
<p>“Hmm.” He paused for a moment, considering, and raised an arm to knock on Grian’s door. Before he could, though, Etho heard a creak in the floorboards from inside the small house.</p>
<p>“…Grian?” Iskall called.</p>
<p>Etho knocked properly, out of politeness. “Um, we’re here to make sure you’re alright?”</p>
<p>Grian’s door opened a sliver. He stood just behind it, seemingly shielding himself. His eyes looked red, and he squinted at the light of the torch Iskall was holding. His eyes glinted strangely, and he brought a hand up to rub at them.</p>
<p>“I’m fine.” He said, voice catching and making it pretty obvious that he wasn’t fine.</p>
<p>“Do you… want to talk about it?” Etho asked, shifting uncomfortably on his feet.</p>
<p>Something in Grian’s frame slumped and he seemed to consider something before turning away from the door and pushing it open in an invitation for them to come in. The room beyond was dark, which was dangerous, though Grian probably didn’t know that, or didn’t care. Grian set a torch down and sat on a wooden bench he’d put up in lieu of a couch. He leaned his elbow on the arm and propped up his head with his hand, gazing at them just standing there awkwardly in his barren living room. Iskall went ahead and sat down cross-legged on the floor and patted the ground for Etho.</p>
<p>Grian huffed something like a laugh as he sat, though his amusement at Etho’s expense died immediately. He looked off into the middle distance, seeming to remember something.</p>
<p>“Can Iskall keep a secret, Etho?” Grian asked after a moment.</p>
<p>Iskall scoffed and folded his arms. He looked to Etho pointedly.</p>
<p>Etho knew what Grian was insinuating. “I think he knows more than I do about some things. But yes. I would trust him with my life.”</p>
<p>Grian sighed and looked back at Iskall. “Etho gave me his memories of Earth. X doesn’t know yet, but…” He almost winced at this. Clearly, Grian was on thin ice somehow.</p>
<p>“Putting that aside,” Etho said, before Iskall could say anything, “um, I figured since you died and didn’t come back to the rest of us, that something happened, so…”</p>
<p>Grian grimaced. “I… I told off Xisuma. He’ll be wanting to erase me now, I’m sure.”</p>
<p>“Erase you?” Iskall said, incredulous, “X wouldn’t get rid of you just like that, Grian. Surely. You’re still in the grace period for one thing, and for another, I don’t think X could be truly bothered by anything you could have said to him.”</p>
<p>Grian shook his head vaguely. </p>
<p>Iskall turned to Etho. “And you! What were you thinking, just giving your memories to a stranger? We’re only meant to remember basic stuff, and there you go, handing out your precious memories like there’s no consequence at all!” Iskall stopped himself, seeing something on Etho’s face that gave him pause. He shook his head. “You’re too kind sometimes, Etho.”</p>
<p>“…I just… felt like he needed something to hold onto.” A feeling Etho was all too familiar with.</p>
<p>“Well, I don’t think I disagree there.” Grian said, with a small smile.</p>
<p>Iskall furrowed his brow, looking between them. “How’d you two get to be friends so fast anyway?”</p>
<p>Grian’s smile shifted into something brighter and fonder. “Oh, I hated him at first! I mean, I thought he was pretty much just an evil alien who’d tricked everyone else! But then, well. I guess all it took was a better explanation. He’s just a nerd.” Grian snickered.</p>
<p>Etho glared good-naturedly. “And what about it?”</p>
<p>Grian just laughed harder at him. Etho couldn’t help but smile too.</p>
<p>Again, however, Grian stopped abruptly. Etho tilted his head in a silent question.</p>
<p>“…I told X everyone was afraid of him. He… didn’t seem to take it well. I really don’t think he’ll let me off easy.”</p>
<p>Etho looked to Iskall, wondering if he thought this would be enough to cause X to erase Grian like he was afraid of.</p>
<p>He gave it some thought. “At worst, he might erase your memories.” Iskall decided, with a shrug.</p>
<p>“Isn’t that basically the same thing as killing me?” Grian asked.</p>
<p>“…Yes, I suppose. But you’d technically still be alive at least.”</p>
<p>“Not helpful, Iskall.” Etho said.</p>
<p>“And would Grian have said anything to X if he hadn’t gotten your memories?” Iskall reminded him pointedly.</p>
<p>“Maybe? He was already pretty rebellious I’d say.”</p>
<p>“Oh thanks, Etho.” Grain said, with no small amount of sarcasm.</p>
<p>Etho gave him a look.</p>
<p>He huffed. “Well, okay, I probably would have, just the contents of my complaint would have been different.”</p>
<p>“And I suppose if it hadn’t been you, someone else would’ve said something eventually.” Iskall said, nodding to himself, “and… if he does decide to erase you… I think I do have a workaround.”</p>
<p>“Really?”</p>
<p>“I’ve done it before, but it’s dangerous.”</p>
<p>“So, what is the workaround?”</p>
<p>Iskall gave Etho a glance.</p>
<p>“I save a copy of your memories, basically your entire being, and keep them on me at all times. The dangerous thing about it is if you ever want… or know to want them back. If you do get your memories back, you’ll have to hide the fact that I basically undid something X did for what was a very good reason, in his eyes. It would be a betrayal. It would put me in danger as well as you.”</p>
<p>Grian mulled this over. He looked to Iskall with renewed determination. “If you’ve done it before, you can do it again.”</p>
<p>“…Who was the other person whose memories you saved?” Etho asked.</p>
<p>This gave Iskall pause. “Doesn’t matter now.” Iskall looked at him and smiled sadly, “They aren’t around anymore.”</p>
<p>Etho nodded solemnly. Iskall only looked sadder at this, for a moment, but pulled himself together and gave Grian a smile.</p>
<p>“You’re sure?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Okay. Let’s get started then.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading! Next chapter goes up on 27th Saturday.<br/><a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0032"><h2>32. Aside 2: Non-party-goers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Keralis had wasted no time settling in on Earth, as was expected. Wels was absolutely dwarfed by the towers, and already a sizable section of the ground had been completely covered in concrete. It was the makings of an Earth city, no doubt about that.</p><p>Wels knew, from the corrupted photos of Earth city skylines they’d intercepted over the years of travelling here, that Keralis was retreading the same ground as the humans had, but with his own twists, as per usual. Every planet with some form of inorganic structure would be replicated and remixed somewhat, when it came to Keralis. In the past three projects they’d been a part of, Keralis had been given special recognition each time. The Void-folk appreciated his work. </p><p>Unlike Wels, who, being the sort of alien he was, tended to have less time to work on larger projects. It was typical of him to oversleep, in the sense that many weeks or months would go by without a waking moment.</p><p>Wels had fallen asleep before they’d even landed on Earth. And of course, he wakes up just after a get-together was over and done with. The afternoon he’d announced he was awake, though, post all the catching up he was subjected to, Keralis surprised him with an offer of a visit, and a proposition to him.</p><p>He was awake and spared no time to think as he teleported off the ship and onto spawn island. A boat ride later from a bored and ever-helpful Ren, Wels stood in the midst of the beginnings of a ghostly, gleaming Earth city. Keralis was waiting for him in a small building, an office, he’d called it, along with an identifying photo he’d sent so he could locate it.</p><p>Keralis was impatient, though, and ran out to meet him, ushering him into the office and practically shoving him into a seat in his excitement. Wels wasn’t sure why.</p><p>The large-eyed alien gazed at him, a wide smile on his face, as he sat behind his desk. Wels nervously smiled back. He felt his ears twitch in discomfort.</p><p>“So, Mr. Knight, I assume you already have guessed the proposition I have in mind?” Keralis said, curling his fingers together.</p><p>“I think so? But aren’t I a real liability, with, you know, my everything?”</p><p>Keralis waved off the notion, scoffing. “Mayhaps, but you more than make up for it, do you not? You’re a very hard worker when you can be, and,” Keralis leaned forward over his desk, whispering conspiratorially, “I admire your work very much.” He sits back again, smiling, and continues, “You know, as much as the Void-folk love my builds, I can’t take full credit. I get inspiration from everywhere, almost everywhere but me! And you, I get inspiration from all the time.” Keralis pulls up some photos of Wels’ past builds on his communicator, and points at them. Wels finds nothing particularly fantastic about them, but the way Keralis’ eyes shine as he gushes, Wels can’t find it in him to argue.</p><p>“It’s…” Wels interjects, “getting worse, you know. Surely you’ve noticed. Everyone has.”</p><p>Some of Keralis’ smile dissipates. He dismisses the photo of a fortress type build of Wels’s from many years ago. “Yes. But I still think you’d make a great base partner. No matter how long you’re able to assist.” He smiles sweetly, plaintively.</p><p>Wels takes a moment to think. In the face of Keralis’ earnestness, he really can’t find it in him to say no. So, he lets himself smile. “Well, I suppose I didn’t have any real plans for my own base this time around.”</p><p>A shaken-on agreement and half a build later, the star just minutes away from the horizon, Keralis takes a seat on a precipice with a satisfied sigh. Wels takes the cue and picks his way toward him, over the tops of the unfinished walls, and sits close by.</p><p>“The star is so lovely.”</p><p>Wels looks over at Keralis. “Is it? It looks like any old star to me.” He says.</p><p>“Your eyes and my eyes aren’t the same.” Keralis replies, and in that, that sadness all the hermits carry colors his wistful tone.</p><p>Wels sighs lightly. “I know.”</p><p>A moment passes. Wels stretches, and decides some small talk is in order. He heard some rumblings about the humans, but he’d like to hear about everything, and a slight gossip like Keralis is the perfect person to talk to.</p><p>“So, I heard about that get-together.” He starts.</p><p>“Oh! I wasn’t there. But It sounds like it was quite the night!” Keralis clasps his hands together, taking the distraction and running with it.</p><p>“What was up with that, huh?” Wels prompts.</p><p>And with that, Keralis is off, giving him secondhand details and rumors, half-remembered stories, and impressions of his fellow hermits.</p><p>Wels listens intently until he doesn’t, the star disappearing slowly, then all at once, the fading light taking his consciousness with it. He feels Keralis catch him before he falls off the wall.</p><p>“It’s alright. It’s always alright.” He hears him say in a whisper.</p><p>He remembers nothing more for a long while.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading, as always!<br/><a href="https://eigfic.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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